Renewal - Housing System (suggestion)
Recently, I have been thinking a lot about the housing system in FFXIV and I believe that there is no practical, simple and quick solution to solve this problem. Regardless of what is done, there will always be players who will try to circumvent the systems to gain advantages over others and the work of trying to prevent this conduct will be constant and daily.
I do not believe that a person alone is capable of presenting a solution to the problem, but constant brainstorming can bring some positive changes to alleviate the current situation, which is frustrating.
I believe that thinking about the different player profiles is a good start to understand what is expected of the system. I know friends, for example, who have no interest in personal house, but would like a house shared with their FC. I know that SE is interested in the neighborhood system and the social interaction that results from it, but I believe that this system is not always really used. I really like to walk around the residential areas, I like to do RP and at least on my server these areas are almost deserted. All the houses are occupied in all zones, but still, entering a residential area is almost like entering a dead zone, you common players using those. There are individual houses and FC houses that I think are beautiful and I like to go into them and show my friends what the other players do in them, the way they decorated their houses, but annoyed I see the owners of their houses. It is as if after people bought a house in FFXIV as they abandoned after decorating them.
If the neighborhood system is intended to make players interact with each other and get closer to each other, I believe it needs more use than it currently has. The houses appear to me to be more of a product for exhibition than for use.
Regarding the solution to the constant unavailability of free houses for purchase, the current system with RNG to acquire land (which is often not even the land we want), I repeat that I believe that a number of things should be done for this system to reformulate.
1 - Improve the apartment system.
Not everyone wants to own a home and many of those who do end up opting for apartments because of the ease of purchasing one, but unfortunately they are VERY limited compared to a home. I believe that considerably expanding the possibilities in the apartments would be a good start to increase the satisfaction of those who own them and reduce the dissatisfaction of those who turn to them for lack of available home. An example of this would be the possibility of larger apartments, such as two-storey apartments or in the loft style. Balconies are also nice, with a static exterior view, just to deceive, to give the impression that we are seeing the outside (although we are not really, as it happens in Limsa with the view from the upper deck).
The possibility of being able to have an area for growing plants in the apartments would also be a very nice thing to have.
4 - Individual Instanced Houses
Players who are not within a family would certainly not be able to be in a neighborhood, to have an individual home. For that, I thought that a system of instantiated houses, as in games like ESO, could solve this need to have a house. It could even provide a greater variety of house styles and decorations and even bigger houses than today.
5 - House linked to account
I believe that in all games where we can have multiple characters we have a MAIN and the rest are secondary characters. As “we can't have nice things”, I believe that to avoid or at least minimize that players have bad conduct in acquiring several houses out there, the houses will be restricted in one account, but allow all the characters in an account use that single house as YOUR home.
These are ideas that crossed my mind and I know they are far from being good, but I would like to share with you all so that together we can one day reach an ideal solution for the entire FFXIV community.