TL;DR I am excited about the prospects of Ishgard Housing and look forward to what innovative ways SE can bring about it, to life.
I personally would like to see the Ishgard renovation event as a testbed for solutions to permanently address the many housing problems we currently face.
Specifically,
1 - How difficult it is to actually grab a plot, much less the plot that you want.
2 - How difficult it is to grab a plot at all, sometimes, without having a staring contest with a placard or logging in within minutes of a patch.
3 - How the inactivity timer is too short for people like me who may need to afk for months between expansions, instead of well-within the inactivity time limit, thus can't realistically buy a house.
4 - How pointless housing actually is:
- FC houses are glorified "dead" setups much of the time; they are not moved for years and who gets to move them are rarely most of the FC.
- Personal house decorations are for your own leisure only. Vast majority of people don't even bother to scrutinize the exteriors of other houses in their ward, much less the interiors. Our FC house averages 1 non-FC visitor logbook entry per quarter.
- But given how much other stuff there is to do in this game, all that grind and farm by design, people trying to earn Gil who can't afford a house yet, I scarcely believe most people have the kind of patience or inclination to loaf around in a house. Lonely, too. Much better to just hang out in Limsa, or some other pre-furnished place with live people.
- Furthermore, housing provides little utility. Perhaps Garden, Gold Saucer minigames, tabletop food ... but really, it's not like housing is an actual inn where you rest for bonuses, where it provides a handy social space with lots of tools for people to play around with (some players try), where it's an actual crafting workshop where you holistically do your crafting like playing a FF version of Atelier (gotta pay for those retainers). (I know there are submarines but only the FC head touches that, and even then it's more grind than fun).
- Housing actually has little say about the immersive experience of the game world. Players are remotely removed from all active lore zones of the world, they are in some isolated mansion district in the middle of some remote paradise, but inside a gated community. The overall tone is pointless. It's not like they are camping out in a zone with actual life. It's even more pointless than simply hanging out in Limsa, much less actual RP.
I could decorate my house until it's a coffee shop, but could it function like one? Could a hunt lodge function like one if it's location isn't somewhere in the mountains, but intead the middle of a mansion estate? It might as well be swallowed up by the light and no one could care more.
5 - How housing is not and probably won't be a major selling feature of this game.
- SE prefers game features that are semi-competitive in nature, think Lord of Vermilion or Triple Triad. Such design is supposed to be addictive, think pvp, but this only appeals to small groups of players.
- Cooperative non-pvp content must always have some reward via grind. We all know how well that turned out.
- SE prefers game features that are highly FF in context. All should serve the IP, and draw players closer to within the IP itself. "Neutral" context such as housing and gardens, or "External" context including self-expression outside strict FF and family-friendly SE approved content, are not encouraged.
- Design of innovative housing features and systems, and implementation software-wise, is very difficult and uncertain. FFXIV is too large to fail, yet there are not even enough resources, priority, or executive approval for Viera hats.
Instanced housing has been clamored for but will never be shipped because SE knows it's a slippery slope. It also lacks a kind of polish and feature mechanic fit for this game.
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All-in-all, housing is in an awkward situation.
The dev team was really smart to use housing as a collaborative feature for easy levelling crafting, showcasing more of the game's lore, testing the concept of server-wide events (which flopped)etc. A possible future direction for housing may be to attempt to integrate it more with other features of the game, before focusing on it as a game-level system.
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Besides solutions, there are also things they have tried to do with housing but have yet to succeed, such as:
1 Gil sink and economy regulator,
2 Romantic notion of a player home in this world,
3 Romantic notion of whole player neighborhoods, in this world,
4 Let Crafters make a living wage with furniture,
5 Make Chocobo-raising a thing (like, an actual big thing, not aquarium or orchestrion),
6 Let FCs have a purpose,
7 Have players commemorate their time spent with the game with seasonal furnishing,
8 The idea that you can have your own house in this MMO, as a selling point,
9 Make profits off housing.
And possibly more, which don't come off the top of my mind but are probably worthy pursuits should there be feasible means to attempt them.
Which is where Ishgard comes in with new possibilities to the structure of the housing system, despite uncertainties.
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To get to the point:
The idea that players help build up their own wards, are new and sort of nice. But this raise problems if the structure is similar to old wards. Specifically the problem of "I helped build this but now I don't get to live in it !?"
Few ways to address this:
1 Right-to-use via Lottery explained by lore.
2 Procedurally increasing housing space. (Yes you will get to live in it someday, just keep building. Ishgard's foundation can take it.)
3 Instanced housing (basically apartment wards) but in form of large complexes with simulated room numbers. Multilayer. Cosmopolitan. Cyberpunk, even.
4 Not a permanent housing district, but a for-rent space (with 'flexible' rent prices, cough* economy regulator *cough).
5 Not housing in a traditional sense, as in furniture limits and stuff.
Maybe botanical vaults (that actually grow, and from seeds you pick up all over the world).
Maybe zoos, menagerie.
Maybe performance spaces.
Maybe actual Atelier-style crafting workshops your retainers manage (hey gotta make that profit somehow right).
Maybe player-run (coffee) shops with actual addresses.
6 Better ways thought up by the professional dev team.
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The more later down the list, the less lazy and more creative it gets, but also more exponentially difficult to design and implement. But until we actually see something, we can dream on.
That the dev team will use this opportunity to address many of the old problems, work in new directions and aspirations, and reaffirm many worthwhile existing goals that a housing system could be primed to address.
Ishgard housing could be creative
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12-11-2019, 07:09 PMRaqrie_TohkaIshgard housing could be creative
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12-11-2019, 08:22 PMElladie
As usual, you are overthinking things way too much. I don't have a personal house at the moment (I am master of a small FC with a house) but I don't find housing in any way pointless as it currently stands. It's an oasis of calm, I would much rather retreat here to craft and chat with friends than have to deal with the nonsense of the chat channels in the cities/the Firmament. I do not want all kinds of nonsense introduced to something that is purely for relaxation/creativity/fun.
The only change that is needed imo is a switch to instanced housing and more variety in housing types and locations due to this switch. This would remove the need for the timer and players would still need to invest time into earning the coin needed, especially if they could own multiple instanced houses of different types/locations. But SE don't want instanced housing so presumably the system will remain as it is. -
12-14-2019, 04:41 AMAlyanna_ElingvalAmen to this. I made a quiet place in my yard just for crafting.Quote:
Originally Posted by Elladie
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12-14-2019, 05:15 AMKytrin
My house isn't pointless to me. I'm an introvert. Dealing with the madness that is Limsa or any other gathering place for extended periods of time is as draining to me in-game as going to a party in real life. There are times I just don't want to even look at other people jumping around and being idiots. My house is my own space I can decorate to my own taste (at least as much as in-game furnishings allow) that I don't have to share with everyone else. Granted, I wouldn't mind more visitors, but my house is a nice place I can retreat to when I don't want to deal with other people. I can craft in peace there. I can practice my rotations in peace there. It's my sanctuary. And I like it exactly the way it is.
And as far as Ishgard is concerned... I'm not bothered. I don't care if I live in Ishgard or not. I'll help build it because it's easy scrips for materia and other things I want. The folks who are frothing at the mouth for Ishgard themed housing can have at. And I expect a fair number of them would riot if they implemented any of your suggestions instead. Especially the rent idea. There would be blood in the streets over that I think.