A simple solution to at least some of the housing woes?

First this has likely been mentioned before, I'd be surprised if it hadn't, but just in case I thought I would post :D

I know many people who want personal housing and I know many people who have personal housing. Some (myself included) like to utilize every single facet housing offers. Others like to just have a place to craft in peace, afk or just sit between queues. I understand the housing crew has a lot to do and server space is limited, but there could be a way to utilize server space efficiently, give the housing devs minimal work and at least satisfy a portion of the playerbase clamoring for housing.

Why not introduce a City Loft system?

When we walk thru the cities we see giant walls with windows, why could these not simply be flats? There are some players who could care less about gardening and you see many player houses that are used by players but have a completely vacant yard outside the mini aetheryte and the stable.

Wouldn't it be possible to offer players a place in the city that would be the same square yalmage of a small house but on one floor. They don't need to have access to gardening, stables could be utilized by opening city stables to players, you don't need mini aetherytes since the player could just use the city one and allow you access to your flat from any node. All you really need is a mailbox, and even that isn't 100% needed since every city has em. Make them personal only, no sharing, no fc ownership, etc.

Offer the spaces at a reduced rate (50% perhaps) since there isn't all the bells and whistles of normal area housing.

Sure some players wont be happy, but frankly someone will complain no matter what anyway so there's no avoiding that. But it could be a solution. Esp since some people just don't care about the garden or doing anything with their exteriors. And frankly a one floor loft isn't all bad since a lot of people (I saw this by exploring other players houses to see what they have done inside) only use one floor of their house anyway, usually the one they have their npcs on. The other is void of anything but a stool or an empty table.

It seems like it would be simple, cause very little work for the housing devs, not cause too much server stress and make a large portion of the playerbase happy. I really see few drawbacks.

Thoughts???

This - so much THIS.

I personally had been hoping that a) this was their original plan for personal housing & b) we would've been able to buy an apartment/loft in Mor Dhona (seriously, I would've loved buying a loft overlooking North Silvertear).

Quote:

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They don't need to have access to gardening

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Actually, most players still wants to do gardening, considering it's a housing benefits, which is something that is shared by FC members. There's a LOT of people that's wanting to do garden but couldn't, but that's another topic.

What you're suggesting is very similar to how private rooms work anyway. :/

But private rooms are locked to an fc, some ppl do not care to belong to an fc or they don't want to buy a room for 300k only to have to break it and buy another when they switch, if they get kicked or the fc breaks apart. This would also be slightly larger as it would be the same yalmage as a small house and yours free and clear.

You cannot always have everything and unless they wanna do pots like they did in xi (which was already shot down when housing was first being discussed) it would be difficult to incorporate gardening into single person rooms.

Sometimes its better to have something rather than nothing. And if you want a garden that bad, then stay in your fc room til a house opens. They can still add more wards, but this would just be another option players would have that would open housing to a large group of ppl with minimal dev work, easy to do, easy to implement, great for players. Don't like it, don't buy it, just like normal housing.

But for those who want housing that bad, it would be a great solution.

Only benefit I can see with the loft/flats, would be a permanent room, independent of FC, which I think is decent. I just don't see SE doing it cause they'll basically say "Join an FC and use the private room lol".

I have the solution to the "But what about gardening?" question: patio/balcony.

How many of us live in apartments/condos in real life? I don't know about y'all, but I like to grow things on my balcony. There are websites dedicated to gardening on patio/balconies with limited space. (And heck! We already have lattice planters for the yards; just make them functional for planting!)

This would also offer a place to put a little bit of patio furniture.

I said it in some other thread, but they could also make one of the most ballyhooed features of expansion available to all players (and not ~1000 or only few hundreds per server, depending on housing situation): the airship workshop.

I mean, does no one remember, that there is already an ally of us having a workshop right there in Mhor Dhona? Ever heard of Cid?

Why can't I just give him "enough" gil, that he upgrades his workshop and grants me access to it.
To make things easy: If you're in a group (you need 4 crafter at last), you would only be able to go into the workshop of the groupleader (if he has one).

I don't get why they praise features for a tiny fraction of players, while it is extremly easy to give it to all the players.

Airship is not supposed to be available to everyone, I guess.

Airships (will) give an access to end-game mats and devs love making end-game mats to be hard to acquire.

An easy fix with the gardening issue would just allowing indoor gardening plots. XI had gardening for inside your MH and then introduced something for outside. I don't see why this couldn't be implemented.