Instanced housing? Why not BETTER APARTMENTS?

I'd use it. Apartments in their current state are useless to me, as they are far to small and I want to garden. I'd never even consider an apartment as they are now.

Yes, settle for second or third best. Don't bother being ambitious in this game, just compromise. Stop dreaming big or expecting anything from SE. Nowhere to go but up from here, right?

Pathetic.

Back when plants can whither, I wanted to see a community garden which I think would be perfect for both apartments and housing.
We already share chocobo stables (fc and tenants too), so why not garden. Let others tend our plots and get some small incentives.

Actually lots of things can be done by community instead of relying on ourselves or FC. Small FC often ask for crafter friends to progress workshop.
Let FC has apartment, that's all needed to be done. Put gardening and workshop/airship as community-based.

Make the apartment room bigger. I don't mind with single floor, just big enough so anyone can partition to make rooms.
Let the upgrade costs for the storeroom inventory limit and indoor placed limits.

I'm all for this. I refuse to buy housing with a demolition timer...especially one as short as 45 days. Full instanced housing like every other modern game would be better. The only real reason they haven't fixed it is because they are married to the current system and don't want to scrap it.

'Better Apartments' would basically just be 'Instanced housing, but not as good as what is possible', TBH. :-/

Repeating myself from another thread, but:

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I'd honestly rather see apartments replaced with (or supplemented by) instanced 'Ranches'/'Homesteads'. A large swath of land in a variety of locales (Forest meadow, tropical island, mountain estate, subterranean grotto, etc.)
where you can freely place a house (or even potentially multiple structures) and add large external facilities (pool, archery range, tennis court, etc.)

Ideally with the interior(s) and exterior sharing the same instance so there is no secondary loading involved...

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Already made a similar suggestion in the housing part of the forums with this:

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

/notsigned.

As you can tell from my world listed next to my character picture, I'm on Cactuar. We have a population of 18,459, with almost 10k at level 70. On Aether, we're the 2nd largest world, being behind Balmung (Gilgamesh has 16,806, but we probably have less >active< population). We're 4th highest population in the world with Leviathan and Omega ahead of us.

We have no houses, no, but we have TONS of open apartments in every single residental area. I counted up to Lavendar Beds 2nd Ward Sub to having the first free open apartment; Mist was 1st Ward Sub; Goblet was 1st Ward (no sub). Aside from gardening, there's no other benefit gained from owning a house over an apartment or even FC apartment. I have a mansion in the Mist and traversing my ward alone, I count 3 houses that actively use their gardens, and that's counting my own home.

If people want houses simply to decorate a lawn, I'm not willing to sign. If people want to garden, I'd sooner ask SE to make gardens a separate thing from owning a house where only owning property (like an apartment) is the only requirement to accessing a garden.

What I would sign for:
- Making apartments as attractive as housing; add in upgrade-able sizes as right now, they are the same size as the private FC chambers and not share-able and having a slightly higher price-tag.
- Allow purchase of small, medium and large sizes to match the inside of respective housing with a price-tag to match.
- Allow access to gardening for owning an apartment as if they were a house, with access to the same amount of gardens as the corresponding house size of the apartment.

If the above were met:
- Return warded houses to FCs only.

For players losing their houses, award them with the same sized apartment as the estate they'd be losing, with choice of location.

As it is, people demand more housing for reasons I cannot imagine when there's so many apartments available. I could understand if it's mainly coming from players in FCs that do not have houses, and therefore, no ability to purchase a private chamber, however, you have an option already.

While even I don't like the sound of losing my own home, this seems the fairest thing to do while satisfying what I perceive to be most wants and needs of active players.

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Basically, the answer I got back was "No" because-

• -people want a neighborhood feel (even though I run around all of my wards all the time and find maybe one or two people; 5 if a large, active FC;
• -people like lawns they can decorate and hang out on.

For those two reasons alone, people are apparently fine with actual scarcity in a game over false scarcity. Not even touching on not liking the idea of making warded houses back to FC only; not even touching on getting a voucher for an apartment that is basically a copy-paste interior of the house you had. Just ew because you can't see the house next to you and wanting a customize-able lawn.

Can I jump off balcony ?

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Not necessarily. If implemented properly, the size could be entirely dependent on the person since it's all instanced based, thus not loading unless said person is inside.

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Yes, common sense would say that. But has the FFXIV dev team showed any, any at all, common sense in their treatment of housing? Nope.

They insist that housing must be exclusive content. They insist that housing resellers must be allowed to continue to flip plots even though it's against their TOS. They insist that housing plots only get added in very infrequently and in minimal lots so that the majority of the population are ensured to not have a house.

Common sense would say that it would be designed so that players can pay gil to upgrade their instanced housing and so on. But we're talking about the FFXIV team with a completely disgusting and despicable track record in the housing area.

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Originally Posted by savageink

The only real reason they haven't fixed it is because they are married to the current system and don't want to scrap it.

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I will say this about SE, not the devs just the upper management. They really don't like business risks/uncertainty, not just on this game. It is the way it is, either the system or from the customers had to have some sort of failsafe before investing something that's not going to be used by them over a year. Auto demolish, server-based price, population control, that sort of things.

I do like the idea of making apartments overall much more appealing, even though I was admittedly one of the lucky few who managed to grab a house.(and the one I was aiming for, even!) But I know a lot of people missed out, on all servers, which admittedly really sucks. My apartment was way too small for me to really enjoy decorating it at all, plus it lacked the neighbourhood feel and 'connection' to the outside world. The suggestion made here actually ticks off two of the issues I had before, and at least Shirogane's apartment building is dead center in the middle of the ward, making it potentially very much a part of the neighbourhood, unlike the other apartment buildings, which are shoved off in a corner(especially bad with Lavender Beds' one being separated from everything else with a bridge and barely even really in the area anymore). So yes, if apartments were organized like this, I'd have considered it an alternative to having my own house if I hadn't managed to get one. However!

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

Already made a similar suggestion in the housing part of the forums with this:



Basically, the answer I got back was "No" because-

• -people want a neighborhood feel (even though I run around all of my wards all the time and find maybe one or two people; 5 if a large, active FC;
• -people like lawns they can decorate and hang out on.

For those two reasons alone, people are apparently fine with actual scarcity in a game over false scarcity. Not even touching on not liking the idea of making warded houses back to FC only; not even touching on getting a voucher for an apartment that is basically a copy-paste interior of the house you had. Just ew because you can't see the house next to you and wanting a customize-able lawn.

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The reasons mentioned by people here, I would say somewhat make sense in regards to those two things being quite big things even for me and reasons why I'd always favor a house over an apartment if given the option.(And while I've barely seen some of my new neighbours so far, I've got a few neighbours that are very enjoyable to have already, as they greet me and have idle chats with me upon spotting me, for example.) Which is why I think the most appealing option to players would probably be either larger wards or more wards, and why the 'returning warded houses to FCs only.' idea would be met with even more rage. However I think a lot of the current disappointment would already be soothed greatly by making apartments an actually decently acceptable alternative, rather than just being a more expensive private room that you don't get fucked out of if things go south with your FC in some way. (Or glorified furniture dumps for those waiting to get a house/having excess furniture/seasonal reserves.)

In the end, I think this thread's alternative is the best I've seen/heard of so far apart from expanding the amount of available houses...by a lot. That would likely not be an attainable goal, while apartments being improved is, and should've been in the plans from the start. And I'd personally hate a housing setup like they have in WildStar, exactly because it feels rather lonely to have a house in some personal special instance, even if others can come visit. I like the current housing system in FFXIV in it's base concept, just...way too many people, way too few spots, for even a majority to be able to enjoy it.