Petition for more wards / instanced housing

Tale as old as time, but maybe if enough people digitally signed maybe we can get some change to the housing in FFXIV. Far shot but a person can dream lol.

Signed

I'll gladly sign. We've got nothing to lose at this point.

joining the cause! sign!

I'll sign for this.

Also, I would like to request a temporary instancing of Kugane, come patch day. As well better log-in servers. But... I'm doubtful on these happening.

I agree, something needs to be done - Signed

/signed

I'd also like more wards in the original places.

I'm all for more wards. When you consider the fact that there are less than 3,000 houses available and the lowest population NA server has around 10,000 active players on it, while the highest population server has over 20k ACTIVE players on it, I think you really need to re-evaluate. Signed.

/signed

You have my support.

As a house owner I'm in agreement. Not only would it open up housing but making the exterior part of the instance would allow for more outdoor items and ability to pick you view.

/not signed

I disagree, create instanced housing units. I'd rather we invest money in content development that server infrastructure to create more dead neighborhoods that sit and waste server resources that could be used elsewhere in the game.

If you want to keep existing wards, fine but no additional wards but any additional housing should be moved to instanced housing and the housing relocation feature could be utilized to transfer an instanced house to a plot when one becomes available and is purchased. Instanced housing should be a fraction of the cost of housing in wards to encourage its purchase and use over the wards and by its nature should allow entire servers personal and FC to have a home while requiring minimal, if any additional infrastructure to be purchased.

Everyone this housing shortage isn't something they want, its probably pretty damn hard to justify to execs that should spend a couple hundred thousand dollars on new servers so people can have more houses, its not going to bring in any additional revenue because it will never be financially smart to purchase and run the amount of infrastructure to give 15k people per server, not to mention FCs a house in a ward that is constantly loaded into memory. Put a little money in to do instanced housing, advertise all players can get a house and I would wager sub numbers increase.

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Originally Posted by anzamoni

/not signed

I disagree, create instanced housing units. I'd rather we invest money in content development that server infrastructure to create more dead neighborhoods that sit and waste server resources that could be used elsewhere in the game.

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It does say "instanced" right in the title. Instanced housing or more wards I don't care how it gets fixed as long as it is fixed so everyone can benefit. The people who want to partake in the housing community are hindered because of a poorly implemented design which is unfair. I would love instanced housing because I use mine solely for convenience of having all my stores in one place. I also love decorating. But I feel like everyone should have an equal right to enjoy all content in game considering they are paying for it.

I have an idea that might be useful to this, even if farfetched:

What if there was only one size of plot, which included an option to increase or decrease the size of the plot? Think a large yard with a small house in it.
Players would pay gil to upgrade the house size, which would trade off the amount of outdoor items that could be used for more interior space and items. For example, if you upgraded from a small to a medium, you would pay 12-13 million gil. This would turn the house into a medium house, and you could place 300 items inside instead of 150. However, where a small house on a plot could allow for 60 items to be placed into a yard, the item limit outside would decrease to 50. This way, players wouldn't need to move locations to increase house size.

/signed

Firstly, I sign this for more housing wards, as one of the pleasures of having your own house in a ward would be getting to show it off to anyone who just happened to be walking by. Failing that, then I sign for instanced housing second.

1 home per account. /endthread

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Originally Posted by chocolatebabysundae

1 home per account. /endthread

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That still doesn't fully fix the issue. With servers like Balmung that have a high pop, even if you were to limit it to one home per account it would still leave a good handful of people homeless unless they want to fork over that 30-100+mil for a house that someone flipping.

/signed

SE seriously needs to get on the ball and do something about it.

I have a house and I still find this unfair.

God be with all of you in the upcoming Shirogane Hunger Games.

-signed

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Originally Posted by Cylla

snip

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Unfortunately not everyone in an entire server is going to be able to own a house/apartment at any given time. Making housing instanced will in fact completely fix the issue but hopefully never happen but making it instanced takes so much away from the housing system in this game.

What SE could feasibly do is increase wards in high population servers and enforce a new rule of 1 house per account. This game has a black market for housing and there shouldn't be one. I know the devs said already that it's frowned upon but that isn't enough.

I don't own a home but will try to at 4.1 launch. I figure if I put the time effort in getting a house, I'll have no-one else to blame but myself.

@anzamoni: I think your idea for instanced housing alongside current housing is a great compromise and the ability to transfer if a house in the wards becomes available is also fantastic. This will allow everyone a chance at a house. Those who don't care about wards won't even bother with them which will leave the wards more open as well and people who don't want to risk losing their home due to inactivity can rest easy with instanced housing.

However, I'm not so sure about how intentional this shortage actually is. It has been stated that Yoshi P himself said that he wanted them to be kind of exclusive. I've never seen the source for this, but I've seen it said several times. Though it certainly doesn't make much sense considering the fact that there are benefits, mainly for FCs, tied to the housing system. But if it isn't the case, I have to wonder why on earth there are only a limited number of apartments available on each server....:/

I think instanced housing is the only solution.

If we got infinite wards, like if a new ward popped up each time the old one filled.. then we'd have people buying smalls, relinquishing smalls, and racing for the medium/large houses. Imagine a truly empty ward with no small houses anywhere.

If things were instanced, we could slowly upgrade a small to a medium to a large. It would be fantastic.

signed

/10char

For people arguing for instanced housing, I have one point I would like for you to consider:

The solitude of instanced Garrisons in WoW (and only the solitary aspect of them). Think of every pro and con you can with that one.

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Originally Posted by Aster_E

For people arguing for instanced housing, I have one point I would like for you to consider:

The solitude of instanced Garrisons in WoW (and only the solitary aspect of them). Think of every pro and con you can with that one.

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Garrisons were extremely limited in their customization and could not be assigned to guilds, as such each one you visited was essentially the same. I wouldn't really consider garrisons as instanced housing, much more as a personal outpost for a single expansion, similar to Pandaria's farm.

Edit: And Signed too. I'd rather have instanced housing available, but I'm all for more people getting access to housing either way.

As a new-ish player, i am absolutelly disheartened by the housing situation i've found. Getting an actual house was my main engame goal, but now it seems like i just may never get one because of the ridiculous limits around it.
While having enough wards for every player would be the dream, i would still be very much happy with some manner of instanced housing that actually involves a house instead of a glorified 500k cubicle.

Signed

/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.

Signed count me in. It's time SE owned up to this and try to fix it

So basically you're saying to everyone that is homeless should just settle with an instanced apartment while you enjoy having your mansion just because many are available? Yeah no thank you, gee I wonder why so many apartments are still available.

Signed, I'd rather personal housing be instanced lands so we can also do gardens, choose our locations fitting for our characters, upgrade our homes when the budget is right, etc instead of being restricted to a tiny square space. Apartments are already instanced so why can't any plots be too? Why is this request so strange to current vocal in game personal homeowners lol.

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Originally Posted by Strywin

So basically you're saying to everyone that is homeless should just settle with an instanced apartment while you enjoy having your mansion just because many are available?

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No. You should re-read it. Actually, never mind, it's all right there and you didn't comprehend it, so I'll highlight the changes:

My suggestion does:
- Take all player housing back.
- Make all warded houses only available to FCs.
- Make all apartments become small, medium and large. All apartments would all become bigger than they are now, even the "small" apartment.
- Attach gardens to FC houses and apartments. Only requirement is to own at least an apartment to qualify for a garden.
- Players that had a reclaimed house are given a voucher for an apartment for the house size they lost (IE: I have a mansion, so I'd be given a voucher for a mansion sized apartment for any location I took it to).

From your response, you read the first few lines of my suggestion and laughed it off. Apartments are already instanced houses minus a lawn. We have 2,880 houses (after Shirogane) and 4,320 apartments (after Shirogane). I'd figure apartments with adjustable sizes would be easier on server space and load than warded houses. It's also a suggestion to make apartments more attractive since they are the same space as a private chamber and smaller than a small house.

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

-snip-

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People want houses to be able to do whatever they want with it. People like to decorate, it's actually a big part of why housing is so coveted.
Also the reason people don't care that much about apartments is because they're so DAMN small and a lot of people would probably rather buy a private room in their FC's house. The issue could be aleviated with a revamp for apartments like you proposed, but ultimately a lot of people would still want an exterior area to decorate because, again, decorating is a big, if not the biggest, thing about housing for most people

I really do wish people would stop saying they don't want instanced housing because it would be lonely. The wards are already empty.

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

Apartments are already instanced houses minus a lawn. We have 2,880 houses (after Shirogane) and 4,320 apartments (after Shirogane).

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For me, I want the yard space and given the surge in cherry trees after they went on the cash shop, I don't think anyone's going to be too keen on giving up the use of lawn decor they paid real money for. The yard space is a big part of what some people want from housing. Heck, people have even lost their houses they hang out at quite a bit, simply because they only ever made use of the yard space.

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Originally Posted by Guiballad

People want houses to be able to do whatever they want with it. People like to decorate, it's actually a big part of why housing is so coveted.
Also the reason people don't care that much about apartments is because they're so DAMN small and a lot of people would probably rather buy a private room in their FC's house. The issue could be aleviated with a revamp for apartments like you proposed, but ultimately a lot of people would still want an exterior area to decorate because, again, decorating is a big, if not the biggest, thing about housing for most people

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*Sighs.*

If the whole issue is being able to have a lawn, I can't say that's worth the trouble of the server load. If players want instanced housing, no one's going to see your lawn, anyway, but you. For all we know, having to load a potential maximum of 720 lawn items is the whole reason why warded housing has been so time consuming to implement.

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Originally Posted by Elamys

I really do wish people would stop saying they don't want instanced housing because it would be lonely. The wards are already empty.

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But I often see other people in my ward.... I always see this couple sitting outside their home near mine. And my friend and I always craft out front by the market board. I see people in the house next to mine come and go and stop by the market board and I see several people from up the hill who come down to the market board frequently. I've made some friends this way ~ And when I'm bored, I like to go around the ward map and pop into people's homes if it's open. Sometimes I spot them inside and say hello. Or, if my friend is with me and they're downstairs / upstairs, he likes to send Eos up to them (by herself) to surprise them. haha. Got some good laughs that way. :)

Maybe a lot of wards are dead and I'm just a special case. Or perhaps everyone just says this because they only spend 2 minutes outside their house before going inside or leaving...? If you're there as often as me, you tend to see other people. Granted, it isn't booming like if you go to Kugane near the market board or something. But I'm on one of the lowest population servers and see plenty of people.... And I don't think it needs to be BOOMING. In real life, a neighborhood isn't like a block party 24/7 after all. Personally I think it's nice.

That being said, I think a mixture of wards + instanced housing would be best. The earlier suggestion from anzamoni was great.

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Originally Posted by Dustytome

For me, I want the yard space and given the surge in cherry trees after they went on the cash shop, I don't think anyone's going to be too keen on giving up the use of lawn decor they paid real money for. The yard space is a big part of what some people want from housing. Heck, people have even lost their houses they hang out at quite a bit, simply because they only ever made use of the yard space.

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This just tells me that there are people that don't even want houses, just a patch of green they can decorate. Would that not mean we're completely asking for the wrong thing? We're also going off of the assumption that instanced housing would be share-able and/or have a lawn to begin with that you can customize. I'm just saying, if it came down to it, which is more important, more houses or having a lawn? It would not surprise me if this was an actual concern devs face.

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Originally Posted by Aster_E

For people arguing for instanced housing, I have one point I would like for you to consider:

The solitude of instanced Garrisons in WoW (and only the solitary aspect of them). Think of every pro and con you can with that one.

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I already am isolated. In the year an a half I've had my house I have seen one other player in the ward. I have never seen another player when visiting other wards or housing areas. I saw more housing activity with instanced housing in Wildstar than I've ever seen here. There was always someone holding an open house or having a party with an ongoing active chat channel. Heck even Rift tended to have more activity related to housing than I've seen here.

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Originally Posted by Dustytome

For me, I want the yard space and given the surge in cherry trees after they went on the cash shop, I don't think anyone's going to be too keen on giving up the use of lawn decor they paid real money for. The yard space is a big part of what some people want from housing. Heck, people have even lost their houses they hang out at quite a bit, simply because they only ever made use of the yard space.

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Which is why I say any move to instanced housing needs to include the exterior area in the instance. It could also allow us to get past the exterior item limits.

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

*Sighs.*

If the whole issue is being able to have a lawn, I can't say that's worth the trouble of the server load. If players want instanced housing, no one's going to see your lawn, anyway, but you. For all we know, having to load a potential maximum of 720 lawn items is the whole reason why warded housing has been so time consuming to implement.

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Sure they could. Other games with housing have the ability to hold open houses or let people into your instance. In fact some have a pretty active housing scene as birds of a feather flock together.

I'd take instances over more wards (would gladly give up my personal hoise for this), but at this point I'll take whatever, really. Perhaps more slots for garden furniture as well?

/Signed.

More wards, or instanced housing. Anything is good. Or make new wards start with all small housings and new housing systems - make all houses upgrade-able into medium to large in the future.

People who dont want to upgrade, then that's their choice.

signed but only more wards. instanced housing is lame. make another subdivision if you need too, or make it look different entirely. cities grow irl too when population grows. the rest of the world evolves too (like mordhona and idlleshire)

More wards, yes.

Instanced housing, GOD NO. That's a terrible, awful, dreadful idea.

Whoever came up with the idea of giving up all of our personal houses for FC only wards and giving us apartments in return, that's awful. I LOVE my houses. I put in alot of time and effort checking houses being up for sale over and over again for me to get them together with my wife. Just because people who are less dedicated to getting a house as I am doesn't mean they are entitled to one.

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Originally Posted by Mikki

Maybe a lot of wards are dead and I'm just a special case. Or perhaps everyone just says this because they only spend 2 minutes outside their house before going inside or leaving...? If you're there as often as me, you tend to see other people.

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I spend pretty much all my time in game crafting out in front of my house. I've seen like 3 people.