[SUGGETION] Minor farming in houses

Parasaurolophus · September 2022

Hello. I do not like to offer any ideas or instruct on the introduction of something, but still I had an idea. Many players want to make housing more functional and useful. Some want to see farms.

I must say that I don’t want to see large farms and fields in the game, because ESO is not a sandbox with complex crafting, so I don’t think it’s necessary to burden the game with something like that. I also don't want to give players the option to grow their own ingredients for some reason.

My suggestion is to make some ingredients for alchemy, maybe some new food recipes that can only be obtained from special stations.

For example. There will probably be a chapter on Telvanni in the future. There may be a chain of 3 quests, telling about some mycologist wizard who brought a new kind of mushrooms of two types (2 new unique alchemical ingredients). But these mushrooms cannot be found in nature, only grown in special conditions. For each quest, the wizard rewards us first with a small, then medium, then a large farm for each type of mushroom. Not too big to put it neatly on the table. These farms would be added to the collection, and would be the same for all houses, like chests (I think it is not necessary to explain why). In order to start growing mushrooms, a special resource would be needed, which could be obtained from the conditional "anchors" of the chapter.

The farms themselves look like closed terrariums of various sizes, where as the mushrooms grow, they begin to glow and shimmer with pink gold or some other shades (just not blue and red, there is too much of this light in the game)

So in the future it would be possible to non regular add such unique ingredients, including for provisions, in the future. And a wide variety of types. For example, to buy an echatere that would crap with useful ingredients for whatever

Heartrage · September 2022

I don’t hate the idea. My concern is with the negative impact this could have on the economy, the risk of it becoming a daily login chore and Zos many instances of making ankle deep systems repeating itself.

If the farm doesn’t need constant repetitive work, is well integrated with other systems with a reasonable complexity and reasonable rewards, I’m all for it.

I just don’t want to login in my farm on my 18 characters every day to do a farming daily that’s just about getting a bucket and clicking on four plants to water them because it’s more efficient than running around and harvest plants.

Dr_Con · September 2022

Heartrage wrote: »

I don’t hate the idea. My concern is with the negative impact this could have on the economy, the risk of it becoming a daily login chore and Zos many instances of making ankle deep systems repeating itself.

If the farm doesn’t need constant repetitive work, is well integrated with other systems with a reasonable complexity and reasonable rewards, I’m all for it.

I just don’t want to login in my farm on my 18 characters every day to do a farming daily that’s just about getting a bucket and clicking on four plants to water them because it’s more efficient than running around and harvest plants.

I'm pretty sure houses are shared account-wide, so it'd be more like getting your daily dragonguard box.

Billium813 · September 2022

TBH, I'm having a hard time understanding what it is that you are suggesting, so if my comments are off, let me know what I got wrong.

It sounds like you are suggesting for a player housing upgrade that contains some form of resource gathering? I don't personally hate it, but I think it doesn't belong in an MMO

For one, it further promotes solo play. It encourages players to close themselves off into instanced housing where they gather resources cut off from the whole world. That isn't very Multiplayer in an MMO. I know that in recent years ZOS has made more efforts to support solo gameplay too, so I kind of worry that they might support his sort of solo, instanced content... but hopefully not.

Second, there are tooo many things to balance! Will it be a new ingredient or will they use existing ingredients?
ZOS could end up wrecking the economy if farming inside your house is clearly better than harvesting in the overworld. If they purposefully make it worse than overland harvesting, then what's the point of the new mechanic outside RP? No one would do it.

Third, this mechanic is deep enough that it would require lots of work in the game, but it isn't flashy enough to satisfy players as a new chapter mechanic. It would have to be one part of an entire "Elder Scrolls Online: Homestead" expansion that adds many player home mechanics.

It's doable, but has tons of possible ramifications!

Needlessly pedantic comment!

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

For example. There will probably be a chapter on Telvanni in the future.

They already did the Morrowind Expansion and Telvanni is most likely too small for an entire chapter.

Billium813 · September 2022

An alternative idea may be to improve Cyrodiil to add further guild support and resource gathering.

At the moment, guilds can take possession of Keeps in Cyrodiil, and currently there is no actual benefit for doing so... however, it would be interesting if Cyrodiil Keeps actually had boundary areas of control around them. And if a guild controls a Keep, then guild members enjoy double resource node collection in that Keep's area.

If you wanted to REALLY expand this idea too, they could add "plantations" to Cyrodiil that guilds could control; outside the Keeps in the countryside. Perhaps these "plantations" have the possibility for rare ingredients to grow in the farm and only guild members can harvest them. Controlling the associated Keeps Lumbermills, Farms, and Mines further increases the "plantations" spawn rates. Enemies taking Keeps would take control of the "Farms" in the surrounding countryside.

I like the idea of moving this idea into PvP to add more multiplayer variance to the mechanic and drive community involvement. It could be good to add incentives for guilds to take/hold keeps, or to play in "off hours", or to go off into the countryside of Cyrodiil. It feels better to me rather than more instanced, non-combat, solo game play that sounds like its own stand alone game.

Jim_Pipp · September 2022

Love the idea of farming for a more immersive, functional housing system, but agree that it should not give existing crafting materials because it would reward repetitive solo gameplay.

Easy solution - A huge range of resource generating furnishings (bee hives, flour mills, potato plants, fish hatcheries, sunflowers, etc) that all generate 1 writ voucher per day, with a limit of maybe 10 functioning ones per manor. These writ-voucher generators can be bought with crowns or... writ vouchers. The writ voucher system really needs a revamp, and this would transform them into the currency of crafting and commorancy.

Parasaurolophus · September 2022

@Billium813 I'm afraid you just misunderstood me. Am I describing the idea so badly? Briefly:
I would like to see some unique crafting ingredients for alchemy and provisions that can only be obtained with special limited fittings. Some small farms that would be added to the collection and would be the same for all houses, so as not to force players to use all available houses.
Please re-read.

Amottica · September 2022

I expect that if Zenimax made it so we could get resources from within our homes, it would be extremely limited such as a couple of matts per day per account. Going beyond that would create issues with the economy. Some players farm matts to sell. Others farm matts to use. Others buy the matts they want.

If we made it easy to get matts by merely setting up farms at our homes, it would kill the economy.

This is not FarmVille or a survival game where there are risks to farming. The current system works great for the game we have.

SilverBride · September 2022

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

I would like to see some unique crafting ingredients for alchemy and provisions that can only be obtained with special limited fittings. Some small farms that would be added to the collection and would be the same for all houses, so as not to force players to use all available houses.

I don't like the idea of unique crafting mats being locked behind housing.

Sealish · September 2022

What about this:
A new assistant and a series of node containers. You give the assistant your survey maps and they will go harvest them for you (limit one per type per day) and deposit the results into the matching containers within your house after 8 hours.

The containers in your house can hold unlimited raw materials until collected at which point you either need the inventory space to pick it up or the crafting bag to hold it.

That way it allows your house to act as a convenience feature for collecting resources you already gained access to as a reward. It acts as a time saver instead of a straight up resource generator.

ArchMikem · September 2022

Heartrage wrote: »

If the farm doesn’t need constant repetitive work,

But, that's what farming actually is.

Heartrage · September 2022

ArchMikem wrote: »

Heartrage wrote: »

If the farm doesn’t need constant repetitive work,

But, that's what farming actually is.

No, it’s not. Farming involve working in cycles with multiple tasks and a lot of problem solving and decision taking. Even harvest season doesn’t involve only harvesting. You have to prepare the soil for winter and add long term fertilizer for the next season as you harvest.

If that system is just a repetitive daily quest packaged to look differently with a different reward, I don’t see the point of having it not be just a daily quest and at that point, why even bother thinking about it?

Parasaurolophus · September 2022

Heartrage wrote: »

ArchMikem wrote: »

Heartrage wrote: »

If the farm doesn’t need constant repetitive work,

But, that's what farming actually is.

No, it’s not. Farming involve working in cycles with multiple tasks and a lot of problem solving and decision taking. Even harvest season doesn’t involve only harvesting. You have to prepare the soil for winter and add long term fertilizer for the next season as you harvest.

If that system is just a repetitive daily quest packaged to look differently with a different reward, I don’t see the point of having it not be just a daily quest and at that point, why even bother thinking about it?

well, let's say once a week just come up and loot a certain amount of ingredients.

redlink1979 · September 2022

Please, no farmville.

Heartrage · September 2022

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

Heartrage wrote: »

ArchMikem wrote: »

Heartrage wrote: »

If the farm doesn’t need constant repetitive work,

But, that's what farming actually is.

No, it’s not. Farming involve working in cycles with multiple tasks and a lot of problem solving and decision taking. Even harvest season doesn’t involve only harvesting. You have to prepare the soil for winter and add long term fertilizer for the next season as you harvest.

If that system is just a repetitive daily quest packaged to look differently with a different reward, I don’t see the point of having it not be just a daily quest and at that point, why even bother thinking about it?

well, let's say once a week just come up and loot a certain amount of ingredients.

Sure, crops don’t grow in a day. A weekly cycle would give more flexibility to players to do tasks for the farm.

It could work like arenas scores in a way. The more you work on your farm, the higher your farm score and the more you get by the end of the week based on it. You raise your score by bringing items you find in the wild to the farm. Dwemer pipes for irrigation, minotaur manure, vampire bone meal, etc… with enough diversity we wouldn’t be stuck doing one thing always for it and could be doing it passively. By adding quality and effects to these items, players that care would also be able to actively participate in it and feel rewarded.

I would also like to see the items to upgrade/maintain the farm be all player tradeable since it’s a trade activity. It would also mean that you can stock up for next week if you don’t have the time which would make it even more flexible to do.