Instance Housing as Alternative Option to Wards

Wards consume far too many server resources in exchange for too few houses to be a sustainable long-term option. Adding more wards is a bandaid on a broken leg.

If it is feasible with FFXIV's current infrastructure/server resources, I strongly urge Square Enix to provide players with an instanced housing option, not as a replacement, but as a second alternative to Housing Wards.

Players who badly want neighbors can try their luck with wards. Players who don't can have an instanced home. Two ways this can be implemented are:

Option 1) A gate in each city that when interacted with, leads the player their own personal instanced S/M/L housing plot with a lawn.

Option 2) Allow apartments to be upgraded to the size of a S/M/L house. This sacrifices lawns, but makes apartments a viable alternative to houses.

With both options, players could keep upgrading the size of the instanced plot or apartment with more gil.

EDIT: Removed my suggestion about an account-wide cooldown for plot purchases. Someone else brought up people having characters on different servers, which was something I hadn't considered.

Instanced housing was one of the two options offered to us when they first introduced the idea of PoH to the XIV fan base. We chose wards. We chose community neighborhoods. We chose this fate. They told us the limitations of both systems, and we chose the one we have.
Now after all the programming has been put into place, you want to take it back. Ask them to rewrite everything so that we all can get a slice of land, isolated from each other in lonely little single house plots.
I’m going to say no to this. We made our bed, and I for one am happier with the system we have over the system that games like Wildstar and Rift have in place. Everyone gets a free house, and most of them sit empty all the time. At least this way we remain interactive with each other and the plots and wards get used.

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Originally Posted by Draconous

Everyone gets a free house, and most of them sit empty all the time.

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You are aware that a majority of wards sit as just that, right? Barren, empty, unused. There is no "Community" that comes from housing wards unless you have an FC beside another, it's the only time you actually see people at housing at all. They should have never added the option to make plots purchasable as personal and new wards should be FC Only. Personal homes should be kept instanced, like apartments, while also offering a yard and the ability to have guests, events, whatever hosted out of it.

On our server Shirogane has maybe... 20 plots that are FC. The other 700 plots are all personal locking FC's out of houses, workshops, company crafting, diadem ventures, and more. No FC should be punished because becky wants her 3rd Lavender Beds mansion that will sit barren for over a year before being sold for over 200mil gil.

Heres the deal. Even in current system on Balmung alone I can think of around a dozen houses that sit empty. For us thats a lot. So that argument sorta falls flat, it happens on all servers instanced or not. Wards for FC’s and instanced for personal isnt a bad option. I would not however limit the purchasing to the account but the server. Why? I know several people who split their time between two servers.
As for those who obtained their personal housing? They keep it, however getting to would change. You keep your tp and simply go to a different gate. Because you could honestly turn the apartment system into personal housing. Give plays the option of an apartment, small, medium or large (add more space instead of being capped at 90)

Boom, you know have opened up room for FC’s to grow and expand because all those personal houses are now cleared out WHILE still keeping your personal housing.
Cause TBH I see the most use of yards done by FC’s for events. I mainly see events hosted at FC’s. So from someone who has owned 2 personal houses at different times on Balmung I can stand by saying I’d rather see a system like this put in.
Also would drop the scalpers and flippers down a bit because now it’ll take time to make and lvl an FC to buy land instead of just picking up a personal to flip.

Neighborhoods are great from a roleplayer’s perspective because it fosters a sense of community. They also encourage people to go to one another’s houses and explore and gain inspiration. Wards make housing a community resource instead of just a personal vanity project. Could the system be better designed, yes. Are there improvements needed, yes. I would love to see FC-exclusive wards, especially looking at how on Balmung’s Shirogane a vast majority of the plots went to individuals and a lot of FCs remain homeless. But the idea of trying to call a do-over and refocus on instanced housing instead of wards is a huge, huge disappointment to me.

I do think that an account-wide cooldown might not be a terrible idea, and I would love to see FC-exclusive wards implemented. I worry, though, that in an effort to solve the problem quickly the community would be willing to trade what is, I think, one of the central benefits to the housing system we've labored under.

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Originally Posted by Draconous

At least this way we remain interactive with each other and the plots and wards get used.

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What interactions with each other? I have seen one person in my ward and others I have walked through in the year and a half since I bought my house. That includes visits to FC houses. Anecdotally my experience is the rule not the exception. I had a more active instanced housing situation in Wildstar with its housing chat channel and frequent open houses. While less than Wildstar even Rift had more activity than I've seen here.

By the way the OP is saying fully instanced as an alternative so those that would rather suffer waiting for a ward based house can.

I'd love if they went with option 1 because I like the idea of having a plot of land where I can decide on whether I want a small, medium or large should the individual or FC has the funds. I'd like to see the wards stay, they're not going anywhere but having instanced housing added for those that don't care about being in a neighborhood is not a bad thing. The two can co-exist for sure, plus instanced housing is not as isolated as people claim it to be or at least doesn't have to be. Having it instanced could also mean we could invite our friends over that are stuck on other servers on which ever data center you're apart of possibly.

Since there seems to be some confusion, I went and changed the bolding in my original post.

I am absolutely not saying to gut wards and replace them all with instances. SE invested too much into them already. They just added swimming areas. They are not going to get rid of wards after all of that work and it is silly to ask them to - especially for players who actually don't mind participating in the Great Housing Hunger Games just to have some neighbors to interact with.

I was saying that for anyone who doesn’t mind giving up having neighbor to interact with - if it is feasible with current infrastructure and resources - to provide an alternative, separate, instanced housing option.

You all get to keep wards and interact with your neighbors. Anyone who is antisocial or just wants to have a house already and is willing to miss out on having neighbors can get an instanced plot.

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Originally Posted by IrisBlanchimont

I do think that an account-wide cooldown might not be a terrible idea, and I would love to see FC-exclusive wards implemented. I worry, though, that in an effort to solve the problem quickly the community would be willing to trade what is, I think, one of the central benefits to the housing system we've labored under.

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People are denouncing the current neighbourhood system because the overwhelming majority will never experience as server stability simply cannot handle the strain. Furthermore, wards just aren't active. The idea of a bustling community where everyone chats and interacts with their neighbours is fantasy. What actually happens is you occasionally see a couple people here or there and offer little more than a "hi." A good number don't even see that much interaction. Now, of course, some will post stories about how wonderful their neighbors are, but those experiences are rare. I was on Balmung, the roleplay server of all places, and scarcely saw anyone around my house save for one FC who didn't venture too far from their yard most times.

Neighbourhoods were a nice idea, in theory. In practice, they simply don't work.

Agreement for those in here who are talking about wards not actually being bustling neighborhoods. The most that you see this is on the RP servers, and then, only during the active events where people are interacting in the Ward because the entire event is situated there. Otherwise you might find just one or two people playing together, and otherwise not interacting with those around them, because they're playing out transit from point a to point b. Most of the interactions in Wards goes on within an FC, or within an event, or within a house. Not in the open parts of the ward. This might change with the swimming areas that have been added, but again, it isn't as if the OP is suggesting that we get rid of wards, simply that opening instanced housing would be a good alternative for those who do want a house and are uncaring about being in a ward and having a neighbor.

I think this is a fabulous idea that builds off of the current infrastructure! I would love for SE to implement this!

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Originally Posted by Dischord

This might change with the swimming areas that have been added....

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The common areas don't have to go away with instanced housing. They just become an entry point as they are today. In fact I think they would actually become more active as they become the central area for everyone to get access to the MB, shops, etc.

Have to add my voice to this. I think this is a wonderful solution. Those that already have a house, and those willing and patient enough to play the waiting game for a warded house can continue on, utterly unaffected. At the same time, those without a house that don't care if they have neighbors don't have to wait and can nab an instanced home. Only people that would suffer are the house flippers.

I love the idea with option 2: the ability to upgrade the sizes of apartments would be a godsend!

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Originally Posted by Draconous

Instanced housing was one of the two options offered to us when they first introduced the idea of PoH to the XIV fan base. We chose wards. We chose community neighborhoods. We chose this fate. They told us the limitations of both systems, and we chose the one we have.
Now after all the programming has been put into place, you want to take it back. Ask them to rewrite everything so that we all can get a slice of land, isolated from each other in lonely little single house plots.
I’m going to say no to this. We made our bed, and I for one am happier with the system we have over the system that games like Wildstar and Rift have in place. Everyone gets a free house, and most of them sit empty all the time. At least this way we remain interactive with each other and the plots and

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You want us to be punished for a choice that was made no doubt with countless of those who were in favor no longer playing, with many of the current playerbase either being too recent to have had a say then or potentially having chosen the opposite and been overshadowed or just not given their input, and when that choice was made at a time when basically no one could have predicted how overcrowded some servers would become (and how poorly SE would prevent/handle this issue), how poorly SE would deal with housing if overcrowding become an issue, and how popular the game would get/remain four years later? Yeah, no.

I actually suggested the very same idea as Tiergan's the other day with my FC and many of them were on board. We all agreed we'd be happy to not have a lawn if it meant being able to have personal houses in general, for us and everyone else who is so willing. I don't know why apartment numbers are limited, and I don't know why they're only available in the size of an FC private chamber. I would love to have a medium-house sized "apartment" even if it meant having no lawn and no exterior to customize. I think these should be cheaper than regular housing, given those drawbacks, but unlimited fully instanced housing would be great, as is the norm in most MMO's with housing, and would get around the "we don't have the servers for that" issue with non-instanced wards.

This is far from asking them to "rewrite everything." We are not asking for existing wards to disappear, or even for the new wards they are seemingly planning on adding not to also be implemented. We are asking for more "apartments" (those things that are already coded and already exist) and for them to have the same indoor space and layouts as Small, Medium, and Large houses (you know, those other things that are also already coded and already exist).

I don't ever recall having a say in the matter when housing was going to be introduced.
Guess i never got the memo as i have been playing this game for 4 years, anyhow....
I have yet to really see any sort of community activity.
Sure it is nice seeing other houses and what others have done but if instanced housing would mean more players can actually get a house i could care less of "community feel"

Myself i had suggested on multiple posts that we should have a mix of instanced and non instanced.
Perhaps non instanced (wards) for Free Companies and instanced for personal

How is it a game like Elder Scrolls Online which i have played less then a year, i had no issues getting a Large house months after housing was implemented.
Oh right it is instanced housing.
I know not about their server capacities but they have less servers then ffxiv.

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Originally Posted by Draconous

We chose wards.

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I am sure majority of the new player base (especially since HW and SB) will strongly disagree with that statement.

MMORPG must remain relevant to its ever changing player market in order to continue to attract current and new players to the game.

This is how FFXIV achieved its great success in its transition from 1.0 to 2.0.

Upholding options favoured by legacy/veteran FFXIV players wouldn't be healthy for the future of FFXIV.

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Originally Posted by Alesia

There is no "Community" that comes from housing wards unless you have an FC...

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I strongly agree with this.

Majority of the housing wards, even in a highly populated server as Tonberry, there are limited evidence of "neighbours" interacting with each other.

Upholding the ward system at the cost of housing availability will only benefit the privileged few, especially if you are lucky enough not to be surrounded by empty houses owned by shell FCs/alts.

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Originally Posted by Draconous

At least this way we remain interactive with each other and the plots and wards get used.

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So plot twist... no one's wards or plots are ever so interactive it warrants us having wards.. half the time i would be hard pressed not to find anyone thats just sitting there afk.. and thats even if i find someone. There is zero socializing going on at all. Sure you get an rp group on certain events, but they can still run events if they had instances as well. Nothing changes.

So all in all instances win out.

I'm in favor of this, since housing seriously needs a makeover. The current structure is just not able to support the vast majority of people who all want a house. Heck, as someone who owns a personal house, I wouldn't mind trading it for an instanced one if I kept my yard, since a vast majority of my time is spend there. And as someone who chills in their yard, I rarely see anyone else. Sometimes one or two people nearby at the summoning bell/marketboard, but thats all. I never talk to or see my neighbors, so there isn't any community there. Instanced wouldn't ruin or break the lack of interaction.

I also think it would work as a much better gold sink too, since that way a vast majority of players could actually BUY the houses/upgrades instead of sitting on their gil waiting for a plot to open up, and hoping their fast enough to purchase it.

So adding the option of instanced, and not forcing it on to people, would really help I think.

So long as neighbourhoods are not removed, then I think that adding more instanced houses is a good idea. I think option 2 (upgrading the size of apartments) would be the most feasible ^^

I don't want there being too many different types of housing.

Working with the current system, I would:
1) Increase the number of tenants to private homes so that each plot can be enjoyed by more people
2) more wards / plots of course
3) garden instance for apartments + QoL for gardening interface and timer tracking

I agree with this. Adding more wards will not resolve the issue and it will be again stressful for both the players and SE servers because it will end in another rush for people to get a house.
I think instancied housing would be the best to go to allow every player to get a house and to kill the blackmarket of people buying several houses in order to resell them for ridiculous and insane high prices.
Moreover that would be a way to have houses with no demolition timers too (like it is already the case for the apartments) which is cool because players would be able to do a pause with the game without fear of losing their houses and I think it's the way it should be !

A good thing that has already be mentionned is the ability to upgrade the houses. Houses to buy would all have the same size (small) to allow every player to get one for a reasonable price at first and then allow people to upgrade the house sizes without moving.
Upgrading the size of your house could be done by buying expension permit in gils (NOT MOGSTATION) like the housing permit to buid the house.
It would be fair for everyone and will let the chance to have the house we want without having to fight for a medium/large house or having moving feature failures too dependant of the traffic server.

I agree with this. I was recently lucky enough to obtain a Small plot in the Mist after over a year of trying to find one. But truth be told, I don't know any of my neighbours at all. If apartments were expandable internally like OP's Option 2, I would have been quite happy just doing that, and I wouldn't have "taken away" the plot I'm using from someone who might have enjoyed the neighbourhood more.

I'll also add that I'd love some sort of balcony for apartments (where the view is just a generic backdrop, a la the view from Admiral Bloefhiswyn's command room - canyon view for Goblet, forest landscape for LavBeds, ocean view for Mist). Until I got my Small, it was pretty sad always collecting these outdoor items from seasonal events and knowing I'd almost certainly never get a chance to use them.

Here are my thoughts on how they SHOULD do apartments!

Small(Cost: 500,000 gil) It is literally just the apartments that are available now.

Medium(Cost: 1,000,000 gil) This apartment has 2 rooms with pre set up walls separating them and a door. Each of those two rooms has the ability to have different floors, walls and Ceiling lights. The amount of spaces for items could be bumped up by 25-50 spaces, this would also be the same for storage. Perhaps for special items like Planters, give them the ability to have 3 instead of 2.

Large(Cost: 1,500,000 gil) This apartment would have 3 rooms that have preset up walls separating them and doors. Each of these rooms has the ability to have different floors, walls and ceiling lights. The amount of spaces for items could be bumped up by 50-100 spaces, this would also be the same for storage. And for special items like planters, allow the ability for 4 planters instead of the 2.

Cheers!

Assuming the instanced reference is in reference to housing being completely instanced (as it is already partially instanced - for a demonstration of this simply try using /shout inside your home and see if anyone standing outside in the yard can hear you):

SWTOR had completely instanced housing. Out of everyone who owned housing on the Ebon Hawk server (one of the game's most populated), only 4 groups ever bothered using those instances for any kind of content production. The VAST majority sat empty, consuming server resources and not contributing any content.

Static neighborhoods have a better chance of producing content for the game's players (as well as the content producers themselves) because there's a much higher chance of actually running into one of your neighbors than there ever would be in completely-instanced housing.

(con't)

(from prev)

Granted, as a whole we players don't do NEARLY enough with what we've got to work with here, but the lack of content at this point is not the fault of the system so much as it is ours for not taking advantage.

As such, complete instancing will not solve but one "problem" - a perceived lack of equity in a playloop that encourages artificial scarcity to simulate certain real-world conditions. It wouldn't solve the problem of empty wards or lack of player-created content. Matter of fact, complete instancing would only serve to exacerbate those two particular issues.

I would encourage everyone discussing the matter - regardless of viewpoint - to keep in mind more than one facet of a many-faceted problem. Solving for one facet may not solve for the rest.

Regardless of whether or not it can be said that we "got what we asked for" that doesn't mean the way that the housing wards were implemented wasn't flawed. For example, several players have an issue with an individual player owning multiple homes. That is something that should have been addressed right from the start, but now they can't address it without doing one of two things: Screw over newer players by disallowing the choice previous players used to have or literally taking homes away from players that own more than one. Neither of those are a good thing because someone is going to be punished. The only alternative is to keep allowing for players to own multiple homes, but then they must address the issue of limited availability.

There is also the issue with the way housing wards were designed from the ground up with a limited availability for large, medium, and small houses. Let's imagine a scenario in which wards were unlimited. Whenever a ward fills up, a new one is automatically added and that will continue indefinitely. We would then have several players who will choose not to purchase a house because the latest ward only has small houses available. They'll wait until people give in and take up all the small houses so when the next ward opens they can rush for a large or medium house.

Now let's imagine that every single property could be upgraded to a large house. People would be a lot less picky and the idea of an individual owning a large house wouldn't be frowned upon by some unless they want to advocate for wards to be only for Free Companies. To even allow for houses to be upgraded in this fashion it would be necessary to completely redesign the housing wards because currently there isn't space available for a small house to suddenly become a large. Then we will also hear SE talk about how, since large and medium houses have a higher outdoor furnishing capacity, they won't be able to support that many large houses unless they cut down on the number of houses available in each ward.

The point is, the current housing system has a lot of flaws, and quite frankly those flaws won't be addressed by the 4.2 patch. At most, we should expect a few additional wards with restrictions pertaining to how houses are acquired or who is allowed to purchase them. Since the entire system would practically need to be rebuilt from the ground up in order to meet player demands, now is the time to consider the viability of alternative options.

Change apartment to Condominium

The condominium will be a duplex type condo meaning there will be two floors and will be the size of a small house. A balcony can be purchased as an upgrade for gardening.

Put fun into getting a condo, you can add Condominium utility which everyone in that condo unit can share these utilities, these utilities would be:

1) A gym - training dummies for everyone to use
2) A SWIMMING POOL (So people can swim and stuff)
3) Workshop (Where people can use crafting station for a small fee)
4) BBQ pit! People can buy food there and be a gather spot for people to chill and meet with her condominium owners!
5) ChocoPark (Carpark) where you can park your chocobo there and do Chocobo stuff
6) Condo transport to people to Exploratory Voyages.

This will somewhat encourage community as well because of some shared services

Also, by going through the forums I had read some comments/post which brings up a very good point.

What if most of our suggestions are ignored and they just continue to just increase wards and housing locations just because there is no immediate profit from doing more work into the housing system? SE somewhat knows that most of the player base won't just quit the game because there is lack of housing and decided not to do anything more because of zero profits.

What if, IF, A BIG IF we are allowed to BUY a 100% available housing through mog station? Maybe $5 for a house. I am totally against microtransactions but this will give people who really really really want a house and also gives SE an incentive to give them the plot (maybe through a mini-patch is when they implement houses that are brought through mog station)

I personally still thinks that improving/revamp the apartment system is the way to go

We already have instanced housing in the form of apartments. It's not like it would even take that much work to fix it up. Just make it so they can be bigger with a veranda. Basically, think of the Inn in Kugane. It has a view of the outdoors....do that, but allow us to actually GO outside. Not hard. Come on, SE. You're killing me here.

Oh and allow FC's to buy it.

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Originally Posted by Mikki

Not hard. Come on, SE.

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It really isn't hard. I am not sure how it's taking 4 years for them to resolve this matter and the white knight players are defending these errors of minor contents.

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Originally Posted by Alesia

On our server Shirogane has maybe... 20 plots that are FC. The other 700 plots are all personal locking FC's out of houses, workshops, company crafting, diadem ventures, and more. No FC should be punished because becky wants her 3rd Lavender Beds mansion that will sit barren for over a year before being sold for over 200mil gil.

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And Fc's don't lock player out!!!! Most Fc's are for the 1-2 people who run them with most of the features you mentioned locked out for the majority of players. It so easy to create a FC, you can sell the FC with the house, allot easier then a personal house. Also, look at the members of the FC's, allot with housing only have 1-4 members.

@OP, thanks for posting and I gave you a "like" vote.

I like the idea of this as long as it is optional rather than forced on everyone. On my main character, I would be comfortable with instanced housing but on my Balmung character being on an rp server has many more uses for open neighborhoods and I definitely would prefer it remain open.

Instances would encumber situations where people want to engage in group activities like a pool party in the housing swimming areas.

As for sizing options on apartments: Yes it would be nice to have more space but one big disadvantage with apartments is the lack of "outside" features such as gardening over 2 plots, cross breeding and outdoor decorating/furniture.

While it may seem trivial to some, many housing enthusiasts consider the outside to be just as important as the inside. Having the ability to use the seasonal event items for outdoors such as the Halloween pumpkin lanterns, the blossom piles and the snow drifts, would be nice. Apartments lock people out of accessing themed housing as well.