Is decorating a money grab?

Aelfan · May 30

I have played this game off and on since launch, and I love to harvest. Yet I NEVER seem to have enough materials to decorate anything. Look at this: I can only make two of these? Or two pairs of tongs?

Why are furniture-making materials rare? It makes no sense, if anything, the wood for a table should be more common than the wood you need for a magical staff. Decorating has greatly improved since launch, but it would be nice if there were less constraints. If the company needs to make money, imagine if the decorators needed more and more houses to fill with the furniture they can easily make with abundant raw materials!

freespirit · May 30

I have a housing habit to feed.

At this point I have totally given up farming furnishing mats, instead I sell other stuff to earn gold to buy them.

Far less annoying! 🙂

Aelfan · May 30

And in case you are wondering, I have not just built a house made of regulus on a vacant house-lot. I have only decorated actual houses, only two seriously.

Necrotech_Master · May 30

i would agree i think the costs of some furnishings are a little on the expensive side to craft, and im not even really that into housing to decorate much lol

freespirit · May 30

When you truly get in to decorating, every house can cost huge amounts.

For bigger houses I expect a bill of many millions and it's not just the cost of the basic furnishing mats, it's the style stones that can really raise prices too.

As an example my current project is using Fargrave items, these are particularly nasty because each purple item uses SIXTEEN ancient sandstone, on PC-EU atm they cost between 800-1000 gold EACH.

AScarlato · May 30

Furnishing housing is probably the most expensive thing I do in the game. At least it gives me goals though and longer-term projects since I don't rearrange my gear sets every patch. Else that would probably be expensive too.

Gabriel_H · May 30

Aelfan wrote: »

Why are furniture-making materials rare?

Define rare. I think the current drop rate is approximately 0.4 furnishing material per harvest node.

SilverBride · May 30

freespirit wrote: »

I have a housing habit to feed.

At this point I have totally given up farming furnishing mats, instead I sell other stuff to earn gold to buy them.

Far less annoying! 🙂

This is exactly what I do!

Aylish · May 30

Furnishing materials don‘t drop in survey nodes.
That may be the reason you don‘t have any despite crafting and harvesting.
They only drop in non survey nodes.

BardokRedSnow · May 30

Housing, fashion, pvp. The holy trinity of end game lol. Hard to start off in, and more like interesting ways to store your junk later on lol. I have too much furnishings and stuff, so now when I decorate I make what I am missing and rarely need to buy anything. That said Im not a hardcore houser with ten listed and counting, I decorate when there's nothing else to do.

Finedaible · May 30

The way I see it, housing is the ultimate time and gold sink but it is not worth the time to me. ESO would have to become my one and only focus for me to get into that, but currently it is not deserving of that position. Even Cyro/Imperial City PvP takes place over housing to me personally. Depends on how you want to waste your time I guess.

virtus753 · May 30

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Aelfan wrote: »

Why are furniture-making materials rare?

Define rare. I think the current drop rate is approximately 0.4 furnishing material per harvest node.

The current drop rate is 40% for heartwood, mundane rune, and (supposedly) decorative wax (from clickables, no mention of the mobs that drop this). This rate was doubled with U44 from the previous 20%, which is still the rate for ochre, regulus, alchemical resin, and bast. (Clean pelt is very different due to the different sourcing, about 5% from leather-producing mobs like cliff striders.)

As mentioned above, this does not apply to survey nodes, which do not give furnishing mats.

But it’s worth keeping in mind that the 40% or 20% is not the chance of getting one—that’s the chance of getting *any*. The 40% or 20% figure is further divided into drops of 1 copy of the mat or 2 at a 1:3 ratio.

So you get an average of 0.5 heartwood per wood node, for example, and that’s without Plentiful Harvest. (60% chance of 0, 30% chance of 1, and 10% chance of 2.)

Regulus will be half that. ZOS responded to requests to buff heartwood, mundane runes, and decorative wax, which were asked for specifically in player feedback. They did not buff all the rates.

When farming, players are greatly served by using Plentiful Harvest for help with this. Where it works properly (as with furnishing mats), it does not increase your drop chances from the 40% or 20%, but it does increase your yield by its own value. When maxed, it gives on average a 50% boost to yield.

Plentiful Harvest rolls any time you get any of these mats (except Clean Pelt), and when it procs, it then rolls for 1 or 2 additional copies of the mat at that same 1:3 ratio, independent of the initial pull.

So with PH maxed, you should see an average of 0.75 heartwood per wood node. (Same for mundane rune and decorative wax.) Again, regulus, ochre, bast, and resin are half that.

Do this during resource events and the drop rate increases to 64% for heartwood, with an average of 1.5 heartwood per node when you have PH maxed. Since the event simply adds another independent roll to each node (and heartwood during events was finally fixed), PH can proc twice on the same node, once for the base roll, once for the event roll.

Relevant patch note from U44:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/667797/pc-mac-patch-notes-v10-02-5-update-44

“Harvesting

The following furnishing base materials have had their drop chances increased:

Mundane Runes, from runestone nodes.
Heartwood, from raw wood nodes.
Decorative Wax, from various overworld clickables”

The drop rate testing is my own.

Frayton · May 30

freespirit wrote: »

I have a housing habit to feed.

At this point I have totally given up farming furnishing mats, instead I sell other stuff to earn gold to buy them.

Far less annoying! 🙂

This is a good attitude to have. Trade the time and effort you put into something else with someone who put their time and effort into farming furniture mats. It's a fair exchange.

Ignore anyone who says you just want stuff handed to you with no effort, you must earn your mats, so spend more time harvesting if you want to decorate a house.

Aelfan · May 30

Aylish wrote: »

Furnishing materials don‘t drop in survey nodes.
That may be the reason you don‘t have any despite crafting and harvesting.
They only drop in non survey nodes.

This is actually why I rarely use the surveys.

SilverBride · May 30

Aelfan wrote: »

Aylish wrote: »

Furnishing materials don‘t drop in survey nodes.
That may be the reason you don‘t have any despite crafting and harvesting.
They only drop in non survey nodes.

This is actually why I rarely use the surveys.

I use the surveys because I often get gold materials when refining that I sell to get the gold I need to buy furnishing mats.

ToddIngram · May 31

They should separate housing into a separate game and charge subscription for it. That way those of us who don't want to ever see or hear about it can enjoy eso again.

Gabriel_H · May 31

virtus753 wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Aelfan wrote: »

Why are furniture-making materials rare?

Define rare. I think the current drop rate is approximately 0.4 furnishing material per harvest node.

The current drop rate is 40% for heartwood, mundane rune, and (supposedly) decorative wax (from clickables, no mention of the mobs that drop this). This rate was doubled with U44 from the previous 20%, which is still the rate for ochre, regulus, alchemical resin, and bast. (Clean pelt is very different due to the different sourcing, about 5% from leather-producing mobs like cliff striders.)

As mentioned above, this does not apply to survey nodes, which do not give furnishing mats.

But it’s worth keeping in mind that the 40% or 20% is not the chance of getting one—that’s the chance of getting *any*. The 40% or 20% figure is further divided into drops of 1 copy of the mat or 2 at a 1:3 ratio.

So you get an average of 0.5 heartwood per wood node, for example, and that’s without Plentiful Harvest. (60% chance of 0, 30% chance of 1, and 10% chance of 2.)

Regulus will be half that. ZOS responded to requests to buff heartwood, mundane runes, and decorative wax, which were asked for specifically in player feedback. They did not buff all the rates.

When farming, players are greatly served by using Plentiful Harvest for help with this. Where it works properly (as with furnishing mats), it does not increase your drop chances from the 40% or 20%, but it does increase your yield by its own value. When maxed, it gives on average a 50% boost to yield.

Plentiful Harvest rolls any time you get any of these mats (except Clean Pelt), and when it procs, it then rolls for 1 or 2 additional copies of the mat at that same 1:3 ratio, independent of the initial pull.

So with PH maxed, you should see an average of 0.75 heartwood per wood node. (Same for mundane rune and decorative wax.) Again, regulus, ochre, bast, and resin are half that.

Do this during resource events and the drop rate increases to 64% for heartwood, with an average of 1.5 heartwood per node when you have PH maxed. Since the event simply adds another independent roll to each node (and heartwood during events was finally fixed), PH can proc twice on the same node, once for the base roll, once for the event roll.

Relevant patch note from U44:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/667797/pc-mac-patch-notes-v10-02-5-update-44

“Harvesting

The following furnishing base materials have had their drop chances increased:

Mundane Runes, from runestone nodes.
Heartwood, from raw wood nodes.
Decorative Wax, from various overworld clickables”

The drop rate testing is my own.

Cool, now account for usage. Like I said, define rare.

tsaescishoeshiner · May 31

Housing is expensive, but Regulus is fairly cheap. You're much better off farming something else and selling it to buy Regulus. For example, Raw Ancestor Silk, fish, farm Tel Var, or new motifs and furnishing plans.

The benefit of this is that you choose your preferred farming activity (based on efficiency or enjoyment). The downside is it's less self-sufficient like a solo player game.

freespirit · May 31

ToddIngram wrote: »

They should separate housing into a separate game and charge subscription for it. That way those of us who don't want to ever see or hear about it can enjoy eso again.

Nothing like a good laugh on a Sunday! 😂

Besides Crown Crates I suspect housing is likely ESO's largest income source. Not just from the exceedingly expensive Crown Houses but also the Furnishing Packs, House Guests, Music Boxes, in house Crown Store etc etc.

Going forward with new content being free, I am really not sure the new Premium Tomes costs will be great earners for ZoS, I know a few people whove brought the cheapest option but very few who considered the Premium+ version was worth the money.

I'm not sure the ESO you love would survive if Housing was a seperate game!

Orbital78 · May 31

Imo they are too common. I do think surveys should have the same loot pool as the standard node in that zone though.

Alphawolf01A · May 31

ToddIngram wrote: »

They should separate housing into a separate game and charge subscription for it. That way those of us who don't want to ever see or hear about it can enjoy eso again.

By that logic...
They should separate PVP into a separate game and charge subscription for it. That way those of us who don't want to ever see or hear about it can enjoy eso again. (Just kidding PVPers, no hate here.)

Just because you don't like an aspect of the game, doesn't mean it should be removed/separated from the game, just to cater to your particular preferences.

Hamish999 · May 31

Housing is the true end game ...

faeeichenlaub · May 31

agree nothing depletes my bank like housing. on average i'd say a million gold goes into my builds and now with bigger limits. I am broke relying on guild store sales and daily craft writs to feed the addiction. Filling out the night den is torture... Fargrave mats $ and mins are crazy. In the plus column my Snugpod hit the recommended list this week in XNA!

MRAW · May 31

Before you craft something yourself, have a look at Tamriel Trade Center if you can buy the items directly and compare that to the mat price. It’s often much cheaper, at least these items that can be dropped by mobs

freespirit · May 31

MRAW wrote: »

Before you craft something yourself, have a look at Tamriel Trade Center if you can buy the items directly and compare that to the mat price. It’s often much cheaper, at least these items that can be dropped by mobs

To expand on this, keep an eye on items that are tradeable currently dropping from events etc.

Atm for example the unbound furnishings dropping from Tome Rewards are selling for virtually nothing compared to their crafting costs(the High Isle items are one)!!

Galatherys · May 31

Some furnishings are very difficult and/or expensive to craft, but mainly because of the style mats. The fargrave stuff needs like 12 ancient sandstones per piece and that doesn’t even drop from Fargrave zone activities (at least as far as I’m aware)

freespirit · May 31

Galatherys wrote: »

Some furnishings are very difficult and/or expensive to craft, but mainly because of the style mats. The fargrave stuff needs like 12 ancient sandstones per piece and that doesn’t even drop from Fargrave zone activities (at least as far as I’m aware)

Purple ones use 16 x Ancient Sandstone, which can drop from activities in Craglorn or can be obtained by deconstructing Ra Gada style items, it does indeed not drop in Fargrave.

It's horrible to farm and expensive to buy!

Dwemer Frame is another that is used in high numbers for the old Dwarven Plans, such as all the different pipes, again horrible to farm as it drops as Dwemer Scrap and you need 10 to make one Dwemer Frame.

Tallon_IV · May 31

Turns out not having an ounce of creativity is saving me a lot of gold.

Orbital78 · May 31

freespirit wrote: »

Galatherys wrote: »

Some furnishings are very difficult and/or expensive to craft, but mainly because of the style mats. The fargrave stuff needs like 12 ancient sandstones per piece and that doesn’t even drop from Fargrave zone activities (at least as far as I’m aware)

Purple ones use 16 x Ancient Sandstone, which can drop from activities in Craglorn or can be obtained by deconstructing Ra Gada style items, it does indeed not drop in Fargrave.

It's horrible to farm and expensive to buy!

Dwemer Frame is another that is used in high numbers for the old Dwarven Plans, such as all the different pipes, again horrible to farm as it drops as Dwemer Scrap and you need 10 to make one Dwemer Frame.

I have almost 2000, I guess I should sell if they're in that much of demand.

bmnoble · May 31

You mean the option to buy houses furnished or unfurnished on the crown store or the various furniture packs didn't make that clear?

Housing is a late game gold and materials sink, that a lot of people get into early on, when they lack both, they want you impatient so you go with the paid options.

Your houses aren't going anywhere you have all the time in the world to get around to eventually finishing them at your own pace, the more you try to rush the more you play into what the games marketing team wants you to do.

JustLovely · June 1

Alphawolf01A wrote: »

ToddIngram wrote: »

They should separate housing into a separate game and charge subscription for it. That way those of us who don't want to ever see or hear about it can enjoy eso again.

By that logic...
They should separate PVP into a separate game and charge subscription for it. That way those of us who don't want to ever see or hear about it can enjoy eso again. (Just kidding PVPers, no hate here.)

Just because you don't like an aspect of the game, doesn't mean it should be removed/separated from the game, just to cater to your particular preferences.

As a PvP main, I've always said we'd be better off if they sold PvP as a separate module and kept the focus on maintaining the performance we used to have. PvP players suffer by having to share a server with housing enthusiasts and vice versa. If it would mean better performance, we absolutely would be better off if different parts of the game were sold and supported separately.