Everyone LOVES the furnishings you can farm on Solstice. The team did an A+ job with this island. You are able to find unique paintings, antiquity furnishings (and blueprints!), fishing furnishings (and blueprints!), pickpocketed furnishings (and zone blueprints!), delve and public dungeon mob loot furnishings, and unique furnishings from almost every node type!
What we
could use is an overhaul to the other DLC zones in the game. I will start with the best zones (after Solstice ofc) and work my way down the list, with my suggestions.
- Summerset/Arteaum: This zone needs little, if any, adjusting. There are pickpocket-exclusive, stolen furnishings, fishing-unique furnishings, fishing pouches (TWO types!) unique paintings AND lore books from chests, *and* a number of nodes (plants) give unique plant furnishings. If I added anything, it would be a rare furnishing drop chance from geysers (so more people run them, something very shiny, maybe a black pearl?) and/or bonus antiquity furnishings (perhaps psijicky in nature?)
- Vvardenfell (I know it’s basegame now, ty): With a MASSIVE list of rare plants, Vvard makes second on the list. In addition, there are wall-hanging furnishings from chests, containers and safety boxes and one of the public dungeons. Battlegrounds reward boxes, (I think? I don’t pvp) drop some cool things. The red crystal from Ashlander dailies is the *best* red, light-emitting crystal in the game. However, all of these things have an exceedingly low drop rate. They could be tweaked up a little, supposedly shroom beetles drop things but that’s never been my experience. A placeable fish furnishing from Vvardenfell would be cool to see… maybe the Ghost Octopus? It would be a shimmery pile of tentacles and ooze! (or even in a tank, as a display animal!)
- N. and S. Elsweyr: These zones are very similar to each other and the changes I would make would be to both. While you can steal a number of neat things (from containers, and not pickpocketed), I think that may be only in the north, and it should be from NPCs too in my opinion. They both have fabulous paintings and lore books. I would love to see nodes in both zones drop the colorful plants you see, in particular the yellow fruit trees in S. Elsweyr. You could even have them drop as an individual fruit, a sapling, or a full, ancient tree.
- Murkmire: With a large supply of unique stolen/pickpocketed furnishings, this zone absolutely earns 4th. Additionally, I’m a sucker for Scuttlebloom (get the addon Scuttlebuddy if you don’t have it yet, find them more easily!) so having a plentiful, unique (rare) furnishing makes me very happy. I have a few routes. Lastly, Murkmire does have a single unique fishing furnishing. While I’d like more, the one it does have is pretty cool, so I won’t really gripe. I WOULD, however, like to see unique paintings or lore books (jel!) in the chests. I think you could also make use of some of the existing assets that are unique to Murkmire drop from nodes (especially plants!) Ideally, the attack plants…
- West Weald: This zone probably scores higher for a lot of people, but I really like scuttles. W. Weald has a good amount of different furnishings you can find: pickpocketed wine tools and utensils, Mirrormoor sparklies/crystals, unique paintings, and a LOT of antiquity-only furnishings (and blueprints). I’d love to see node and/or fishing drops. This zone has a number of gorgeous autumnal features, and something like leaf piles or saplings would be great! (I know you can buy one from homegoods, but just throwing ideas!)
- Telvanni Peninsula/Apocrypha: This zone might score higher, but because it’s actually two zones in one, I’m keeping it here. Telvanni Peninsula has a few pickpocketable utensils, unique paintings from chests (Apocrypha drops them as well), and quite a large number of antiquity bonus furnishings you can scry. It scores higher on the list than it otherwise might because it also has Infinite Archive and Bastion Nymics, with a number of lore books and apocrypha-style furnishings you can earn. Because these are not free, but earned, I shouldn’t even have them on the list, but they almost count. The reason I made this post however is because I strongly believe that Telvanni Peninsula should have similar rare plant/shroom beetle plant furnishing drops as Vvardenfell. They’re SO incredibly rare, PLEASE give us another zone in which to find them. I think there is also room for a fishing furnishing, perhaps added to the apocrypha soggy satchels (or w/e the inky things are called)… I know they drop blueprints, but why not a lurker spawn you can place?
- Clockwork City: This zone has a *few* furnishings, but not nearly as many as I’d like. You can find various clockwork tools from stolen sources, bits of fabricants… from fabricants, and lore books from chests. For an older zone, it’s not bad, but I’d love to see either a fish, a node furnishing, or more antiquities. Adding the fabricant plants (including any existing but uncraftable assets) and shiny rocks would be a fun addition. I also think that adding a unique furnishing to the dailies or the bosses would help bring people to the zone.
- Hew’s Bane: This zone used to really only have the red thread (found in wardrobes), but now it also has books from treasure map chests. I’d love to see more furnishings, perhaps from nodes (like cacti! There are a ton that are easily available unbound by buying homes with gold that would normally only be crown-available), fishing, and bosses. The world bosses here are so rarely done. I think the zone of thieves should *also* have more stealing-exclusive items, even if they’re just utensils or tools (placeable lockpicks would be neat!)
- Gold Coast: This zone is only above the tied ones because in addition to the treasure chest lore books (there should be paintings too!!), it ALSO has the Depths of Malatar dungeon, with some of my favorite furnishings (flowers/geodes). I’m not sure if that counts as part of the zone, but I think it does. This is also one of the few zones with bonus ayleid loot from antiquities, which pushes it a little higher. Housing the dark brotherhood also allows you to unlock the bequeather across Tamriel, who has a few unique furnishings. That said, fishing and node collecting should really drop something more, like patches of grass or dusty rocks (or perhaps a placeable SCORPIONFISH!)
- Wrothgar: I almost put this with the tied ones, then I remembered you can steal orcish carpet, blood, as well as 3 different orcish throne patterns. Additionally, this was the first zone to get a crafting station from antiquities, and it’s still one of my favorites. That said, I would LOVE to see a fishing furnishing for the ONLY purple fish in the game, the Crab-Slaughter-Crane (whatever that is!) and I think the zone would benefit greatly from node plants and rocks (snowy-covered, probably). I also think that the dwemer locations could benefit, GLOBALLY from an increase in dwemer furnishing and blueprint drops. This zone also does not have any unique paintings, which is a shame. You could even have Wrothgar (and perhaps W. Skryim?) drop ice flows, as they dropped once from a monthly reward, and this would be a good way to keep them in rotation while allowing new players more access to the item.
- Blackwood: This zone barely goes above the tied ones as well, as it does have unique paintings, and it is one of the ayleid antiquity bonus zones. It is ALSO responsible, however, for antiquities in general, so it gets a little credit for all the antiquity furnishings. I think this zone should ABSOLUTELY have some scuttlebloom in the south, as well as the chance to catch the Murkmire fish. I think it could use some swampy plants from nodes as well- it’s a HUGE zone, and running around it almost feels like Cyrodiil. It’s hands-down the BEST DLC zone for that feel, and including more node furnishings would make it a more viable farming zone for me. Additionally, there are no unique stolen furnishings. I think a land with such a diverse group of people and cultures would be able to have some fun stolen things, like Imperial and Argonian tools and weapons for navigating the swamp.
- Western Skyrim/The Reach/Blackreach:Greymoor These zones are all tied because the only “bonus” furnishings you can find beyond base game stuff… come from chests. I think to improve these zones, they need things that make them special. For W. Skyrim, I think you could use a lot of the same snowy node furnishings, and they almost touch, so it would make sense that they have the same furnishings. The Ritual Sites in these zones (blackreach too!) should absolutely drop vampiric furnishings. Whether these are the same ones the plunder skulls drop (worse) or new ones (BETTER), they would draw more people to these sites. I think new reach witch or red vampiric things would be fabulous! Blackreach, ESPECIALLY Arkthzand Cavern, should drop *something* from nodes and/or fishing. While I like how echo-y and open these areas feel sometimes, most times that translates to “dead” and empty, in a less than positive way. Doing these ritual sites can be VERY difficult for solo/newer players because it is an empty area. I think glowing plants and rocks would make this zone come alive again! You could *REALLY* make it appealing by giving the punching plants as an incredibly rare (think vvardenfell plant level) drop, as they’re present in this zone.
- High Isle: This zone barely makes the list and only does so because of Tales of Tribute. Play ToT and you may get a few furnishings- mainly the tapestries, though there is also a houseguest. This zone would benefit greatly from a chest furnishing (lore and/or paintings), node furnishings (grasses, smooth stones, SUNFLOWERS, and various lava rocks/sculptures), antiquity bonuses, and stolen furnishings (druidic tools/utensils?). Galen and Y’ffelon are even worse than High Isle, as they can’t claim ToT and have NOTHING- so everything you give High Isle, you could give to Galen too. I think that both of these zone should also have the same fishing furnishings as Summerset, as the coastlines feel like cousins and they share the same seas, geographically.
- Fargrave & Deadlands: This zone quite frankly sucks for furnishings. There is an antiquity enchanting station and that’s really it. There NEEDS to be unique paintings, stolen daedric implements and tools, creepy burnt and twisted plants, unique furnishings from the Oblivion portals (these would be good to add to Blackwood too), and maybe even unique fish furnishings, like a placeable “Vile Crayfish”. I think that this zone absolutely needs *something* to bring it up to par with the other DLC zones in the way of housing. Other ideas: Thieve’s Trove/Safebox-exclusive wall furnishings like vvardenfell. YES I know there is a lead from these, so it would make them harder to find… add more or increase the spawn rate, it would just be fun… or maybe some sort of Daedra “part” or piece you can only get from killing them in the deadlands/fargrave shambles kind of like the fabricant parts in CWC.
Anyways, I would love to see what you would like to see from the various DLC (or basegame!) zones in the way of findable, farmable furnishings!
PCNA - Changuita