Maintenance for the week of March 25:
• [COMPLETE] Xbox: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – March 26, 6:00AM EDT (10:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EDT (16:00 UTC)
• [COMPLETE] PlayStation®: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – March 26, 6:00AM EDT (10:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EDT (16:00 UTC)
• ESO Store and Account System for maintenance – March 28, 9:00AM EDT (13:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EDT (16:00 UTC)

Please Make the Housing Grind Less Unbearable. You're Killing Me!

  • katanagirl1
    katanagirl1
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭
    Raideen wrote: »
    In my observations in most of those contests, the winners are usually a crown store exclusive 350 slot home all with ESO+ and a metric ton of items only found in the housing tab. The "judges" all seem to prefer 700 slot homes slammed with housing tab goods. The buy in price to even be considered to be judged is easily over 200 dollars.

    I guess that depends on who is running the contests. In Tamriel Homes (EU), we have all kinds of housing contests: small houses, big houses, appartments... We have different themes and as far as I know, the contests aren't being streamed, unless a guild member wants to stream their own house.
    And the judges are the members of the guild. We *all* get to vote on the contest houses. There is no buy-in.

    I understand where @Raideen is coming from here. Some of the best items in the housing editor are Crown only and quite costly. If you are willing to shell out the crowns to get them they will certainly make your house look good.

    Many people argue that you don’t have to have those items to win a contest, and that might be true if you are very creative. This is one of the reasons why I just decorate my houses for myself only. I’m not that creative, and I can’t put real money into buying a lot of stuff for my houses. If I don’t buy a house with the Crowns from my subscription than I can buy a few special items from the housing editor every now and then.

    So, my houses suite me but they are not anything special.

    I would not blame the contests, though. ZOS wants to make money off those nice Crown only items.
    Khajiit Stamblade
    Dark Elf Magsorc
    Redguard Stamina Dragonknight
    Orc Stamplar PVP
    Breton Magsorc PVP

    PS5 NA

  • katanagirl1
    katanagirl1
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭
    Here’s the other thing about housing that is killing me, competing with all the other players for leads from enchanting nodes and safeboxes in the new zones. We all want that Daedric enchanting table for our homes. Why does it have to be a foot race to be the first to get there? I was lucky and got one fairly quickly, but had to farm that Havocrel boss for several hours for a second lead there, and I can only find a handful of safeboxes or enchanting nodes per hour in the zones. The chance of getting the lead from a handful of containers is not good.

    I’m going to use another Elsweyr comparison here, back then I considered joining another trading guild because the one I had was full, but now I only have 6 items in the trader.

    Others in my trading guild have said that sales are down. If I had items to sell I might see this too, but without items in the trader I don’t have sales, and without sales I can’t buy from the traders. Seems like this is all strangling the game economy right now.

    Also, how long can a player stand to play without getting a lead or furnishing plan? I used to love doing this but getting nothing is causing me to lose interest in even logging in at this point.
    Khajiit Stamblade
    Dark Elf Magsorc
    Redguard Stamina Dragonknight
    Orc Stamplar PVP
    Breton Magsorc PVP

    PS5 NA

  • Raideen
    Raideen
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭
    Here’s the other thing about housing that is killing me, competing with all the other players for leads from enchanting nodes and safeboxes in the new zones. We all want that Daedric enchanting table for our homes. Why does it have to be a foot race to be the first to get there? I was lucky and got one fairly quickly, but had to farm that Havocrel boss for several hours for a second lead there, and I can only find a handful of safeboxes or enchanting nodes per hour in the zones. The chance of getting the lead from a handful of containers is not good.

    I’m going to use another Elsweyr comparison here, back then I considered joining another trading guild because the one I had was full, but now I only have 6 items in the trader.

    Others in my trading guild have said that sales are down. If I had items to sell I might see this too, but without items in the trader I don’t have sales, and without sales I can’t buy from the traders. Seems like this is all strangling the game economy right now.

    Also, how long can a player stand to play without getting a lead or furnishing plan? I used to love doing this but getting nothing is causing me to lose interest in even logging in at this point.

    man, my sales are down DRASTICALLY. I mean I am lucky to get 1 sale a day at 3 traders. My GF has been saying the same.

    In fact, its been so bad lately its been meme worthy. We often joke in feigned excitement when something sells now.

    Raw materials seem to be the only thing selling. Everything else, even at cut rate prices is way down.


    edited for spelling
    Edited by Raideen on December 1, 2021 6:26PM
  • Hymzir
    Hymzir
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Killing you, eh? You don't say...

    All hail the all mighty powers of Synchronicity!

    See, a wee bit of time back, I was going through my reference libraries for old projects and came across something from 2009... the truly amazing Global Astroliner bit from Amazing Nuts!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-rexyelXOU&list=RDl-rexyelXOU&index=2

    Now I can't help but to hear this thing in my head when ever I think of ESO housing. Just replace every "she" with "ZOS" and I think you too will get the drift...

    Yeah, housing is kinda grossed out on the greed front, but what can ya do? Plenty of people who don't seem to have any better use for their paper, so them's the breaks.
  • Ravensilver
    Ravensilver
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Hymzir wrote: »
    Killing you, eh? You don't say...
    [snip]
    Yeah, housing is kinda grossed out on the greed front, but what can ya do? Plenty of people who don't seem to have any better use for their paper, so them's the breaks.

    Umm...

    I'm sorry, but I don't get your references. What paper? What do you mean with synchronizity? What does the video have to do with housing?
    I thought I'm current with the English language, but I seem to be missing something here... ^^;;
  • KMarble
    KMarble
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    I used to love doing this but getting nothing is causing me to lose interest in even logging in at this point.

    When the Deadlands dropped I spent a week doing dailies and avoiding the story. I started the quests on the Monday of second week. I was done with all the story quests halfway through my play time on Wednesday. At that point I had found 2 green plans and 0 (ZERO) motif pages.

    I'm very, very thorough when first going through a zone. I check and pick up everything in my path. I explore everything I can in the map. 2 green plans. Not even Murkmire was this bad.

    It took me 3 weeks to get the first motif page from the dailies coffer. I ran into every portal I could find, fought WBs, stole from every place I could think of every day since the day the DLC dropped. I got 2 - I think - purple plans and maybe 3 motif pages.

    Last week I got a plan drop from one of the mobs in a portal. It was an old daedric plan (which I already had and doesn't sell). This week? I didn't log in.

    I think that putting the "best" chance for furnishing plans dropping from the last boss in the portals was a bad idea.
  • Minyassa
    Minyassa
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭
    I had to take a break from housing, which for me means taking a break from the game because housing is my #1 activity and everything I do in the game revolves around it. After the complete lack of container farming in Deadlands I just lost my will to work on it. I logged in to do one dungeon and collect my daily reward through November until I got the head ornament. When I saw December's daily rewards I stopped logging in daily (I mean...all my mounts are fully trained, why *would* I?) and really now all I'm bothering to do is stay active enough not to be dropped from my guilds. And this is entirely due to the housing grind. I'm just burned out.
  • Hymzir
    Hymzir
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Hymzir wrote: »
    Killing you, eh? You don't say...
    [snip]
    Yeah, housing is kinda grossed out on the greed front, but what can ya do? Plenty of people who don't seem to have any better use for their paper, so them's the breaks.

    Umm...

    I'm sorry, but I don't get your references. What paper? What do you mean with synchronizity? What does the video have to do with housing?
    I thought I'm current with the English language, but I seem to be missing something here... ^^;;

    Sometimes I can be somewhat abstruse, especially late in the night when I'm tired. More so when I've been working heavily on a project and my mind has started to wander. And having stated that, I realise I am being so again. But it is late, and my mind has started to wander, so apologies for that in advance...

    Synchronicity is the phenomena of random events seeming to have a causal connection when they do not. They are just random events that bear a contextual or structural similarity, but are not actually related to one another.

    The event in this case was me noticing a thread on a topic that I care about - i.e. ESO housing - with a provocative and striking topic header, and coming across a blast from the past around the same time, that features a similar line in contextual role quite close to the key thing at the heart of this topic.

    The mind, wired for pattern recognition, sees this as a meaningful connection and a linked event, even though on a closer inspection, it is clear that it is just a coincidental occurrence of two unrelated topics featuring the same contextual setting.

    However, such synchronistic events can be used to gain better insight into the topic at the heart of the matter. It's kinda like making an analogy. You know they are not directly linked, but find it interesting how well they match, structurally speaking that is. Of course, with all analogies one has to keep in mind, that they are just that. Analogies, and all analogies break if you push them far enough.

    Which in this case brings me to the clip I posted... Or more accurately the song featured in the clip, and more specifically the lyrics of the song and the topic they deal with. (The Amazing Nuts version just being my personal favourite video of the song in question.)And even though I do not think that the behavioural patterns discussed in the lyrics are the behavioural patterns that dictate how ZOS operates when it comes to housing, I do still find it eery how close they resemble each other.

    Hence my point about substituting every "she" in the lyrics with a "ZOS." Thus also the joke about synchronistic events and their powers on our imagination at the start. See, I'm not saying that housing in ESO is based on an instinctual desire to bleed everyone who comes in contact with it for every single penny they got and bring them to their knees in desperation, but... It's a kinda funny how close that mindset seems to describe the way housing works in ESO.

    I know, I know. It is a much more complex topic, with market forces, societal behaviour patterns, and consumer culture values all mixed up in a broth that creates this reality. It's not intentional, but the end result is still the same, and ESO housing ends up heavily on the greedy side of things, made purposefully as aggravating as possible to sell convenience.

    And there are enough people, who are willing to engage with the system as it is, to keep it trucking as is. Hence my note about people and their paper. Which is slang for money. And another one of those synchronistic things - I don't think it is used all that much any more. But it used to be a much more prevalent word back in the day, and features quite heavily in the dialogue of GTA San Andreas. Which, as you may know, has featured quite heavily in the recent discussions about gaming and the greed of the companies involved in the business.

    That's what that was all about. A synchronsitic event, and now I can't stop thinking about ZOS wanting the cream, ZOS needing the cream, and ZOS getting the cream. And how they are killing us, and how I know we will just go along with it, 'cause you know, we will. And that was the point of it all. It sucks, but it is what it is for reasons we can't really do all that much about. It wont change. For all intents and purposes, it is working just as intended and doing fine. And there are lot of people who are willing to participate in it, even though most of us full well know how down right bad the whole deal is. All you can do is accept it as is, or choose not to participate in it. You can also make noise about all the wrongs in the system, and maybe with time get enough people to realise that the "accepted" prices for micro-transactions are ludicrous in the gaming industry as a whole. And that selling convince is just as bad as paying to win. And maybe then thing will change. Maybe.

    And in case you were wondering, cream, in this context, is an euphemism for money. Well, wealth really, or ill gotten gains. An all encompassing desire to own all and everything there is. And that is the problem in our system. Corporations do not want to make a profit, they do not want to make money, they want to make all the money. And even then it wont be enough.

    But this is getting long enough and is starting to lose it's focus. The initial post was a much more light-hearted take on things. Like a call to laugh at the absurdity of it all. ZOS is not really in the wrong here. Nor are the people willing to engage with the system as it is. All we can do is to take stock of what the system asks and reconsider if we are willing to pay the prise in time, money and effort. And who knows, maybe the future will bring about better systems for this sort of stuff, though am not particularly optimistic on that front. Not with all the craze over NFT's and more and more publishers getting on board the crypto train.

    And with that, I think I'll call it a night. Hope it cleared up the references, and if not... Well, no biggie, different people think in different ways. Just chalk it down to a difference in our personalties or something.
  • katanagirl1
    katanagirl1
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭
    I am glad to hear that is is not just me that is struggling with getting plans. Once in a blue moon I’ll get a good plan or a good lead, then it’s like some cooldown kicks in so that - even though I play on other toons and log out - I come back and containers are empty or I just get white plans. I wonder if the cooldown now carries over after logging out.

    Then I see players selling purple plans in zone. I can’t really spend more time farming these things if I’m already spending all my time in the new zone.

    I took one day off to play something else but all I could think of was that I can’t get those plans and leads if I don’t play. So I farmed Fargrave containers and safeboxes for 3 hours straight. Mindnumbingly boring just going in a circle in that small area over and over. Got no Fargrave plans except for maybe 3 common green ones I already had. I did get the enchanting table lead, thankfully. Even though there are not many containers in that area, and much fewer safeboxes, I was still successful with the safebox lead. I don’t want to say the safebox grind wasn’t painful, just puttting it in perspective.

    I hope ZOS realizes that if they starve the furnishing players that it will affect the whole game economy. That has to be the group that spends the most amount of gold in game, except maybe for those who gold out their gear and change it every update, but that’s debatable. I’d be willing to bet the housing group has a lot more players than their group, though.
    Khajiit Stamblade
    Dark Elf Magsorc
    Redguard Stamina Dragonknight
    Orc Stamplar PVP
    Breton Magsorc PVP

    PS5 NA

  • Raideen
    Raideen
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭
    So I farmed Fargrave containers and safeboxes for 3 hours straight. Mindnumbingly boring just going in a circle in that small area over and over. Got no Fargrave plans except for maybe 3 common green ones I already had.

    Ouch...when that kind of stuff happens it really makes me think of how much time I am wasting on stuff like that. Heck it makes me consider how much time and money I am wasting on the game in general.

    There is so much about ESO I love, but then there are these quirky, hidden mechanics that really turn me off from the game.
  • Ravensilver
    Ravensilver
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Hymzir wrote: »

    [snip]

    And with that, I think I'll call it a night. Hope it cleared up the references, and if not... Well, no biggie, different people think in different ways. Just chalk it down to a difference in our personalties or something.

    Thank you for clearing that up! Yes, now I can totally understand your post and I absolutely agree with you, especially with this part
    Hymzir wrote: »
    See, I'm not saying that housing in ESO is based on an instinctual desire to bleed everyone who comes in contact with it for every single penny they got and bring them to their knees in desperation, but... It's a kinda funny how close that mindset seems to describe the way housing works in ESO.

    Yes, that's exactly what I've been feeling for a while.

    While players who do vet trials and raids and dungeons get accomodated (up to now gearing loot almost exactly to a player's needs and expectations), the housing community has been left to starve on the dregs. Our money is welcome, our input is not - see the 11-page thread on the furnishing slots which still has no feedback from ZOS, even after almost 2 years.

    I have no problem with ZOS making money. It is, after all, a business, and you need an influx of capital to keep a business running. An online game like ESO is a voracious beast - it needs to be fed on a regular basis, or its customers will wander away.

    But I do object to being used as a cash cow, both ingame (since the purple plans drop at such an abysmal rate, they cost way beyond what I can and *want* to afford) and in the shop. The most expensive items are almost always geared towards housing players. And often, if there is a specific something that we would like to use in a build (I'm looking at you, https://eso.mmo-fashion.com/deadlands-window-fireglass/), they are only available as part of an expensive furniture bundle, that in the end you use only 1/10th of (and can't even sell or deconstruct the rest).

    The feedback here and on the general forum on the subject of housing, housing slots, farming plans etc. has become more and more one of frustration and resignation. But so far, I don't feel like it's something that ZOS deems necessary to look at.

    So... I very much enjoyed your explanation, I now understand your references (go me!) and absolutely agree with you.
  • K9002
    K9002
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    This isn't only Blackwood and Deadlands. I've seen dramatic reduction in plan drops in other zones as well, this is reflected by market prices of various DLC blue plans. I used to sell Alinor blues for around 8-10k just a few months ago. Now I can push them for 15-30k. Even some of the base game blues are going up in price, mostly Redguard and Khajiit stuff, textiles. I used to pull at least one blue DLC plan on every routine sweep, now I see almost exclusively base game stuff. It looks like ZOS wants us to buy more master writs and spend more vouchers.

    I also have a problem with the system in which every player gets to learn only a few plans and then we're supposed to rely on trading. It's deeply flawed because:
    • Guild traders are expensive to fund and offer only 30 slots. There are thousands of possible furnishings, so we have to both anticipate the hot sellers and avoid selling things that are oversupplied by other players. Market research is time consuming.
    • Nobody wants to have to travel to every little odd trader or outlaw refuge to pick up only single elements of a larger build they have in mind.
    • It's difficult to find crafters who can make specific furnishings. Zone chat makes it very unlikely to find such crafters because there are too many zones, each with multiple instances.
    • The guild finder is awful when it comes to finding guilds devoted to niche activities like fishing or housing. Many guilds abuse the tag system by slapping on all possible tags.
    • The chatbox itself isn't suited for up to 500 people posting crafting requests. Neither is any 3rd party chat service.
    There really needs to be a player-made crafting writ system. Community boards where we can post crafting orders at a small fee (gold sink right here) and either pay for the materials or deliver them upfront. It can be secured against scammers who would take the mats/gold and then abandon the tasks. Payment would simply remain in deposit until crafter delivers the products or until the writ expires. As an incentive, player-made writs could award a single voucher each (like charity writs), up to some daily or weekly limit to prevent abuse.
Sign In or Register to comment.