Major changes needed for housing

At this point they should let the island sanctuary also function as instanced housing. Players can purchase homes and build up to the mansions on the island if they want. They can adjust prices so they equal housing wards. And the wards can then be used by free companies and social players that like the system. Short of opening a ton of extra wards to accommodate folks on each server this solves the issue. Especially if they allow you to give access to friends etc.

The apartments just are not anywhere as good as the plots. So much to collect for exterior as well as interior.

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Originally Posted by Krokov

You'll get island sanctuaries which if understood correctly will allow most of the functions of housing i.e. growing plants etc. You course will be able to raise animals as well however to what extent in stuff we have not yet been told.

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Growing plants and raising animals are not housing so Island Sanctuary doesn't satisfy the request for SE to fix the housing system.

Most house owners don't even garden as it is. You might see garden patches in yards but you rarely find anything planted in them. At best Island Sanctuary will satisfy that small percentage of players that only want a house for gardening (and may not even do that depending on what can be grown). It doesn't address the concerns of the remaining players and FCs who want a house for a variety of reasons but can't get one.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Growing plants and raising animals are not housing so Island Sanctuary doesn't satisfy the request for SE to fix the housing system.

Most house owners don't even garden as it is. You might see garden patches in yards but you rarely find anything planted in them. At best Island Sanctuary will satisfy that small percentage of players that only want a house for gardening (and may not even do that depending on what can be grown). It doesn't address the concerns of the remaining players and FCs who want a house for a variety of reasons but can't get one.

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The only reason I would ever buy a house in FF14 is to grow Thavnairian onions, but of course, it's a better use of my time to buy them from the market.

I hate to say it, given the recent Asian hate in the US (I have never been given to reason fear because of my race before until now), but I think there's a cultural disconnect.

I was born in Japan, but raised in the US. My Japanese relatives live in what I consider efficiency apartments, despite the fact they are relatively wealthy (by US standards for people living in efficiency apartments). When my aunt came to visit (before Covid), it made her cry to see our houses.

i.e., having a house is much more special in Japan than the US, and so I think the devs are trying to model housing as something really uber and hard to get, as it is in Japan.

Yes, I know, owning a home is hard to get anywhere in the world.

And so I think they should use this opportunity to fulfill people's dreams of owning a home, regardless of how uber they are in this game, and their tolerance for staying up all night clicking on a sign post.

Because that's what video games are for.

Fulfilling fantasies.

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Originally Posted by MoonPhaseAlpha

True, they might not have broken any rules but it doesn't excuse the fact that they are greedy and won't give up those plots so others can enjoy the game. Player greed is the real problem in my opinion. No one needs a housing portfolio consisting of full/half wards of houses they own. Why does one player need 15 houses?! Answer: they don't.

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The real problem is SE doesn't have enough housing for everyone who wants one. You can take away all the houses from everyone. Like EVERYONE. All personal and FC houses gone and then SE reopens the wards under the same rules as there are now - and there STILL won't be enough housing for everyone who wants one.

Edit: For example - take the FC I am in. Take our FC house, all our members (minus any alts) and we could easily take over a little more than 2 full wards just for us (that's 1 FC house and the rest all personals). We most certainly are not the only FC who would take that many wards just for us and many more FCs who could take far more wards with just one FC house and the rest personals. Multiply that by all the FCs out there. There just isn't enough housing for everyone under SEs current system. So while yes those people and/or FCs that have a half/full ward to themselves is something else, taking all that away still won't fix the fundamental problem of the current housing system.

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Originally Posted by Arillyn

The real problem is SE doesn't have enough housing for everyone who wants one. You can take away all the houses from everyone. Like EVERYONE. All personal and FC houses gone and then SE reopens the wards under the same rules as there are now - and there STILL won't be enough housing for everyone who wants one.

Edit: For example - take the FC I am in. Take our FC house, all our members (minus any alts) and we could easily take over a little more than 2 full wards just for us (that's 1 FC house and the rest all personals). We most certainly are not the only FC who would take that many wards just for us and many more FCs who could take far more wards with just one FC house and the rest personals. Multiply that by all the FCs out there. There just isn't enough housing for everyone under SEs current system. So while yes those people and/or FCs that have a half/full ward to themselves is something else, taking all that away still won't fix the fundamental problem of the current housing system.

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If they limit the number of characters that can be created per world and make every house personal, eventually they will add enough houses for people who want housing. That's one way of solving the supply problem.

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Originally Posted by Tommara

having a house is much more special in Japan than the US, and so I think the devs are trying to model housing as something really uber and hard to get, as it is in Japan.

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The reason housing is limited is literally down to cash. It is a zero-gain for Sqenix to add more housing wards with much of the housing expansions being funded by the Mogstation. I can’t speak for the ishgard housing as I haven’t really been following the live letters as closely as I used to so can’t comment there. Good on them for adding, but they know it’s a money black hole.

Originally housing was meant to be FC only with some requirements in place and an alternative system for personal..even talk of cheaper pricing for personal housing when it came to be... but it never did come to be and the devs decided to open up houses to the masses without adequate supply.

Instanced housing is probably the most elegant band-aid solunion they have at this point.

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Originally Posted by linayar

If they limit the number of characters that can be created per world and make every house personal, eventually they will add enough houses for people who want housing. That's one way of solving the supply problem.

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You are already limited to 8 characters per world..

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Instanced housing is part of the game. House interiors are instanced (you are no longer in the ward when you step inside, why it was raining in your yard but the weather inside is always Fair). Apartments are instanced.

What SE needs to do is focus more on improving the instanced part of housing and giving players more options in the instanced system. There's no point of having a house in a neighborhood when you rarely see a neighbor and you're no longer in the neighborhood once you go inside.

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Very much this... I’ve been playing ever since the end of HW and i’m yet to see the point of the ghost residential districts where you rarely see a soul that is not from your FC house

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Originally Posted by NanaWiloh

You are already limited to 8 characters per world..

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They're not talking about how many characters per world an individual can make, but about how many characters the world will support.
Hard limit the number of characters that can exist there in the first place so no areas a population super out of proportion with what housing can support.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

They're not talking about how many characters per world an individual can make, but about how many characters the world will support.
Hard limit the number of characters that can exist there in the first place so no areas a population super out of proportion with what housing can support.

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I agree in theory (edit) that this needs to be a thing, however SE would also need to add more servers on the NA data centers at least (and have needed to for quite a while IMO). For example, NA has 24 worlds and JP has 31. According to Lucky Bancho, NA also has on average double the amount of characters on each server (I'm not counting Balmung as that world is WAY higher than that) as JP has on their servers.

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Originally Posted by linayar

If they limit the number of characters that can be created per world and make every house personal, eventually they will add enough houses for people who want housing. That's one way of solving the supply problem.

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Right now every world has 5,760 housing plots (4 housing districts, 24 wards, 60 houses per ward). Add 24 for Ishgard and that brings it up to 7,200 total houses per server. JP servers have more players on their worlds than that right now and NA has roughly double of JP on each server (some a bit less - some way more like Balmung). Until SE adds more servers and completely lock existing servers to new characters to be created or transferred (that in and of itself is bad business when people join to play with their established friends) OR make housing completely unlimited either through wards and/or instance housing (with real houses and not apartments) the housing problem will always exist.