Housing, a rant (but I hope a constructive one)

Hello fellow Eorzeans,

if, like me, you've been trying to buy a plot of land for a while you'll certainly be aware of what a fantastic activity SE has made sure to force us into. Namely, go to ward N, teleport to plot N, realise it's still "Not ready for sale", teleport back, rinse and repeat for every ward. This wouldn't even too bad if, sometimes (if not most times), the plot you've patiently been waiting in front of for 4 hours suddenly gets snatched by someone who simply decided to relocate, because sod the hidden timer and whoever already has a house obviously must have priority over the poor lowlifes that still don't have one.

Now, salty irony aside, I would like to discuss which kind of options SE could implement to solve the issue. I've thought of a few, and I'd really like to hear your thoughts (obviously this is just mindless chit chat as I know full well that SE is not really that concerned, but still, who knows ?).

1. Procedurally generated Wards
   
   I honestly can't believe that SE can't do this. When a Ward fills up and all plots have been bought, *poof* new Ward pops up. Keep the one house per person per World limit, keep the FC housing limit as well, but at least this way anyone can buy a house. Make the prices steeper, so that the Housing district can't get flooded, but no so much as to force people to sell a kidney to buy a small house.
   
   
2. Separation between FC Wards and Individual Wards
   
   This is really pretty self explanatory. It wouldn't even change the experience much as the plots would get filled up pretty quickly anyway.
   
   
3. Start banning 1-man FCs
   
   Again, pretty self explanatory. Ban the seller, ban the buyer. Apply your ToS for once. Everyone's happy and you'll probably free at least half of the plots currently owned.

1. It's a good option but... just imagine, that all active characters on Ragnarok (more than 12 thousands according to FFXIVCensus site) will buy a house. And it's only those who finished 4.1 MSQ. And same on all servers. What kind of load will it be for Data Centers? Is it worth?

3. 1-man FCs can't buy houses already, it was changed in 4.2 when there was a nightmare with housing. They need to have at least 4 people in it and be 6th level at least if I remember correct. Same as players can't buy more than one private house per World as well (though if they had it earlier then it can't be helped, SE will not take away houses that were bought).

UPD. patch note about changings in housing system: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...33e139e9792abf

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The following adjustments have been made to provide more players access to housing and its features:

Plots designated for free company use will be limited to purchase by free companies with at least four members.
Individuals will be restricted from purchasing plots for personal use for a limited time.

• Following the release of 4.2, we will evaluate the housing market and decide when to remove the restriction on sales to individuals.
• Players may still relocate private estates.

Players will be permitted to own only one private and one free company estate per World per service account.

• Players may still relocate any private or free company estates they presently own.

To discourage the resale of plots, any plots relinquished by owners will be unavailable for purchase for a limited time.

• During this period, said plots will still be available for relocation.

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Originally Posted by Vasgarth

1. Procedurally generated Wards
   
   I honestly can't believe that SE can't do this. When a Ward fills up and all plots have been bought, *poof* new Ward pops up. Keep the one house per person per World limit, keep the FC housing limit as well, but at least this way anyone can buy a house. Make the prices steeper, so that the Housing district can't get flooded, but no so much as to force people to sell a kidney to buy a small house.

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They have to dedicate an exact amount of resources ahead of time for this, it's the same as just adding more wards other than maybe the ward listing being invisible until some conditions are met. You'd also have people trying to game the system to activate a new ward listing for a shot at the plot they actually want.

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Originally Posted by Halivel

1. It's a good option but... just imagine, that all active characters on Ragnarok (more than 12 thousands according to FFXIVCensus site) will buy a house. And it's only those who finished 4.1 MSQ. And same on all servers. What kind of load will it be for Data Centers? Is it worth?

3. 1-man FCs can't buy houses already, it was changed in 4.2 when there was a nightmare with housing. They need to have at least 4 people in it and be 6th level at least if I remember correct. Same as players can't buy more than one private house per World as well (though if they had it earlier then it can't be helped, SE will not take away houses that were bought).

UPD. patch note about changings in housing system: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...33e139e9792abf

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It is worth it for the simple reason this it’s an experience SE created for the players, not for “some” players, and as it stands now there’s a very limited slice of population that can really experience housing as it was intended to be. This is not endgame content we’re talking about. It’s not an extremely hard duty that only few select people can do at launch.

As for the one man FCs, the workaround to it was found ages ago. Create a dummy FC, boost it to needed rank, buy house, invite buyer to FC, get paid, empty FC. Bam. Done. There’s a whole subreddit of house sellers and buyers. There’s a whole ward on Ragnarok in the Mist that is basically owned by one person only, and it has been like that for ages.

@Dustytome: there will always be people trying to cheat the system, but that is not an excuse for not doing anything (or even making things worse, as it happened with the updates to the housing system). With the amount of subscribers that we have, not to mention the sale of additional items (the whales alone can probably cover it), I can’t believe SE doesn’t have the resources for something like this.

No one doubts that SE does not have the resources, the main question is how much of allotted resources granted to FFXIV by SE would end up going into constantly expanding the wards as they fill up.

They should work on instanced housing for personal houses.
Make one island per character with ability to make it small, med, or large.
With a yard included in each one and everyone can have large house if they choose to pay for it.
Same prices as normal houses for upgrades to med or large.
Once the instanced housing for personal homes is made force all non fc owners to move to single personal instanced house per character.
Leave all the wards as is for fc only homes and limit it to 1 per account on world regardless of how many fcs alts might be in. Forcing players that may have abused the fc trick to get more houses to pick one fc with a house to stay in.

This way all characters will have instanced houses that only load when your in the zone or invite someone to your island. No one would be left without houses. All the fcs will still have the wards for airships/submarines. It may take some time to do it, but it would be far better system then what currently is out there and wards would still be used and there for fcs. With the amount of housing items they add to the game its sad there hasn't been real housing fixes added. So much potential just wasting away. Having so few large and med houses also hurts the system. No idea why they didn't just have same size plots and let you choose if you want small, med, or large house in the first place.

Well if SE is unable to find the ressources, how Black Desert or Wildstar did?

I’m all for seperation of FC housing from personal housing in that FC housing should keep the current ward system and personal housing should be instanced with a housing size progression system and other features. This way it keeps the social aspect of housing between FCs which is great, and a more personal house that we can progressively improve and invite people to. I explain more about it in this thread.
Cost and resources are surely an issue, however it doesn’t have to happen all at once. And it’s definitely worth the investment since the demand on housing is high.

They aren't doing away with the ward system and they won't be taking houses away from people to separate FC and Personal housing. They've already shown they won't take houses away from people by grandfathering multiple home owners.

Requesting instanced housing to co-exist alongside wards could be an option although I think we'll see an expansion of the apartment system where small, medium and large apartments might be an option. They're already indicated they would be looking into this although they really haven't said anything more about it since the release of housing in Shirogane.

I think this will be less of an issue once the data center shuffle happens. Lots of people are hanging on to their housing until then specifically because of the reimbursement that will be happening. The being paid for your items inside is a little unclear, and I think several are under the impression (right or wrong) that having ANYTHING inside your home will net you the full indoor furnishings reimbursement payout.

Housing was literally turned into long term investing.

That coupled with the demo timers being deactivated still, it's made a pretty crummy time for people trying to get housing. Don't think a lot of people realize it either, and people just offhandedly say something like, "Oh every server has plenty of housing!" and junk. These people have not looked recently and are working off assumption. When one comes open now, there is generally a flood of people all standing at the sign in busy status - good portion of which are checking that sign at very rigid intervals for longer than humanly possible...

Pretty frustrating when you're someone legit trying to get a house for yourself or for your fc.

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Originally Posted by Eldevern

Well if SE is unable to find the ressources, how Black Desert or Wildstar did?

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The funds one game may be allocated has no bearing on the funds another may be.

I have a few hopes for solutions, all of them fairly expensive.. so I'm sorry SE but yeah.. lol:

1) [Full power instanced content, like Wild Star]

They figure out how to fix account bound issues and account bind a house to every data center that you have a character on. This lot will be like Wild Star, in that it's your own zone that you may upgrade in many ways including having a much larger than large house and larger than large yard (actually pretty much farm tier open space, also new features because it's your own area like space taking mini games and being able to just float / shrink / enlarge stuff because you can). Wild Star was technically per character, but I'm trying to suggest ideas that have their feet both in feature deep / unlimited and "do-able". May trade items with your own characters via your shared housing. The old housing system will continue on but an attention to abandonment of the system will be noted for future decisions (I imagine most will use a transfer feature to get all their items in the larger, more feature filled, instanced option).

2) [Low memory but still very homely, grow-able, feature full, and optionally extremely impressive, coming with nostalgic systems like Airships]

Perhaps create a compromise, like when you enter an inn room it's beautifully decorated already - or in skyrim you buy a house and can upgrade sections and themes to be in a certain way. Here Airships would have all the features of housing, work for FC even if they don't have a house, and could become much much larger. Picturing like a better Garrison (which didn't have too many visual options). I of course would like to see a full featured housing system using airships but consider this approach as storing perhaps 20 outside variables and 50 inside variables could lead to an airship twice the size of a large house and be fully and beautifully decorated (from your choices of themes/combinations). This low memory would allow them to load it in faster and not around other player's houses, meaning it might get around their memory issue. Also Airships could be a feature that both house owners and not could enjoy (some redundancy with owning a house but also some new features too, like being able to travel around and reach new content). The model design would be expensive but in terms of program systems I think this is one of the more do-able ones as I imagine you could argue the chocobo saddle-bag having more than enough info to describe nearly all ships, and that feature SE found a way to load in pretty much anywhere on every character. Also adds a bunch of new features and goals to the game which is good (FC working towards huge airships or just having the option to actually have a home on full servers that have no normal space left). Made a thread on the concept, here.

3) [Make the limited memory apartments exactly as good as houses, on full servers this may still be a huge problem but it could be 90%+ solved at least]

Apartments get upgraded to be able to become small, medium, large in size. They can upgrade to a balcony/garden area (place for outdoor furniture). And perhaps somehow get some exterior controls (like maybe on their balcony). At this point apartments could technically be 99.9% of what a regular house would be, should change the name though since I feel apartment takes away the idea of ownership. I'd greatly prefer the first idea to this though (Wild Star housing style upgrade) because the whole idea of apartments when there are actual houses rubs me poorly, just sounds like a compromise "where's your house bro?" "oh I have an apartment, it's almost a house I guess".

[Aside comments]

Not really important to the above ideas but my idea for lore for a wild star housing type is that our home world crystal generates a pocket of space in her bosom to help us on our journey (the emotional form of Echo lol). In this all the new features make sense and have some neat lore opportunities, for example if you changed your back drop in the area from Azim Steppes to Ishgard Sky Riser or Sea of Clouds island type A.. no logical issue (because it's all just aether you've stored in a bank the mother crystal has given you). Also I meant neat lore opportunities as in collecting a back drop could be collecting the essence of that zone, or when you bind an item to you it's because you've taken it into the aether and transmuted it into a format that works in there.

I don't really want to see people's neighborhoods destroyed because I know some people like them but imo the Wild Star style housing is vastly superior and has opportunity to be social as well (directory of homes, some can be organized by their type like bathhouse/etc - so players who wanted to see awesome places could do it much faster than they can now). Also most importantly if everyone gets a house we can see better more impressive and integrated features for housing, because now no one is left out (and is encouraged to partake, unlike our current system).

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Originally Posted by Dustytome

They have to dedicate an exact amount of resources ahead of time for this, it's the same as just adding more wards other than maybe the ward listing being invisible until some conditions are met. You'd also have people trying to game the system to activate a new ward listing for a shot at the plot they actually want.

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I'm sure you were just referring to this game, so I am saying you're right but just in case it was a general statement I wanted to add that LOTR Online has a ward system almost identical to FFXIV's but they dynamically change the ward count to ensure everyone gets a place.

Given what has been said about housing by the dev team. I'm pretty sure these suggestions would be implemented if it were possible. But they haven't been, so I doubt it is.

I think the housing system is fine as it is right now, just perhaps add more wards as I know some servers are super busy. Other servers are fairly quiet - on Omega for example there are empty plots all over the place, even in more popular wards like Lavender Beds.

The more systems SE add to ease the 'housing crisis', the more ways people will find to cheat the systems.

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Originally Posted by Eldevern

Well if SE is unable to find the ressources, how Black Desert or Wildstar did?

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I think it's more like they prepared for it with their systems, where FFXIV still has some 1.0 code that wasn't really prepared for the modern mmo expectations. Especially Wild Star with team members coming from Blizzard and all their multiplayer experience, bet that helped them see and create the awesome housing system they created.

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Originally Posted by Eldevern

Well if SE is unable to find the ressources, how Black Desert or Wildstar did?

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Really hope they don't add houses like black desert...FFXIV has a unique housing system that gives us the neighborhood feel to it. Instanced housing will take away from that and I hope they never do take away that feeling. Adding more housing Areas (Ishguard, The newer town in shadowbringers etc.) would be way better than instanced. Not to mention black desert/instanced housing doesn't allow you to decorate the outside of your house which would completely suck.

neighborhood...

We so rarely meet people. It is pretty empty since it is not FC exclusive. I had two mansions, I pretty well know how it looks. A full instancied system could at least replace the apartments. And technically instancied airship or islands are not that heavy.

Technically, I know a little how if works and... yes the wards system is heavy but from my point of view, they wasted a lot of ressources. Wards are a pretty heavy instances where you meet... two, three people, when you are not all alone. Super.

I pretty sure you could meet much more people if there were a central aetherite to access instancied airship or island than we can meet in any ward.

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Originally Posted by Eldevern

neighborhood...

We so rarely meet people. It is pretty empty since it is not FC exclusive. I had two mansions, I pretty well know how it looks. A full instancied system could at least replace the apartments. And technically instancied airship or islands are not that heavy.

Technically, I know a little how if works and... yes the wards system is heavy but from my point of view, they wasted a lot of ressources. Wards are a pretty heavy instances where you meet... two, three people, when you are not all alone. Super.

I pretty sure you could meet much more people if there were a central aetherite to access instancied airship or island than we can meet in any ward.

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Yeah going to have to chime in (agree) and say the neighborhood at least where I go every day is basically ghosthood. I'd much rather everyone could have a house, and a more powerful customize-able house at that, than what I do get (Wild Star preference). Also instance doesn't mean you can't visit your friends or have a directory for social interaction, house of the week, month, etc content.

Although the fact some people like the current system is why I don't suggest to destroy it, just create a better (imo) system on the side. If they can't figure out how to add less wards on smaller servers and more on larger servers though the ghost towns will only get worse as they add new housing areas (if they're not instanced to yourself).

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Originally Posted by Minerva-Redwater

Not to mention black desert/instanced housing doesn't allow you to decorate the outside of your house which would completely suck.

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Black Desert's maybe, but that is not true for instanced housing in general. Instanced housing can be significantly more powerful than the ward system in terms of decoration, like Wild Star.

Also to add our apartments are akin to Black Desert house system, except our apartments are worse (improving our apartment system would be nice). But I'd like to see Wild Star housing, not particularly Black Desert (could be seen as better apartments to reference though), and so adding instanced housing like that would be way better (imo).

I actually like the way housing works. I like the Neighborhood feel, despite being a "ghost town", but if you don't idle outside your house I don't know why you expect anyone else to. I have a room at my FC and share a small house with friends that I don't personally own.

I feel like a lot of these question got answered after the firestorm of Shirogane when there were only 12 wards. Housing creates a lot of stress on the servers. That's why you're limited to so many houses, on so many wards, with only so many housing items.

With that being said, there is speculation that rebuilding Ishgard might eventually open a housing district there.

So like, I don't know why people keep passing this over, but during the NA fanfest when they talked about the ishgard restoration content, they mentioned being able to live there. It's likely not housing wards, as you have to complete the restoration via doh and dol endgame content.


Why do people not think ishgard will have instanced housing at the end of this?

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

So like, I don't know why people keep passing this over, but during the NA fanfest when they talked about the ishgard restoration content, they mentioned being able to live there. It's likely not housing wards, as you have to complete the restoration via doh and dol endgame content.

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This is what I thought too, but most people still seem to be under the assumption that we're getting wards there. It sounded to me like they were saying we couldn't live there until the restoration content proceeded to a certain point, so unless it's a server-wide effort, it really feels like they're setting up for instanced housing. Imagine the salt if there were wards but you couldn't access them until you completed the restoration.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

So like, I don't know why people keep passing this over, but during the NA fanfest when they talked about the ishgard restoration content, they mentioned being able to live there. It's likely not housing wards, as you have to complete the restoration via doh and dol endgame content.

Why do people not think ishgard will have instanced housing at the end of this?

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The most likely scenario is the restoration is a means to introduce the housing, but not to distribute it. A chunk of story with it's own rewards similar to the enclave, but with the turn-ins being DOH/L only. The Ishgard ward will then be opened up similar to Shirogane. It'll require the expansion, they'll let everyone preview it and then the bloodbath after-patch login frenzy.

From my understanding Ishgard reconstruction isn't a solo unlock, but a server wide one. I may be wrong but that is the impression I've gotten.

I wish the housing system was better overall.

I don't wanting housing to be like an instanced thing, i do like the idea of living in a community. Its nice and makes things feel more lively and social.

That being said, i cannot get a house not because i lack the money there just isn't any available.

I'm hoping after the server split i'll be able to snag one.

I just want a house, an apartment doesn't cut it.

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Originally Posted by DarkEiraStar

From my understanding Ishgard reconstruction isn't a solo unlock, but a server wide one. I may be wrong but that is the impression I've gotten.

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It would be a PR disaster in my opinion if they excluded the player base that does not craft or gather from that housing venue so I suspect it's server wide and when unlocked anyone can access it assuming you have completed the main story requirements if any like there was for Shirogane.

If I was designing housing in the game, I would use a mostly instanced system.

Would keep the different districts (Mist, Beds, Goblet, ect), as a single housing hub "district" with a number of different styles of houses in a smaller sized area.

Each of those houses would be the instance entrance for that location/style plot, with an expandable yard/interior size (hello gilsink). Teleports would take you to the hub zone outside your style house, and house visiting would work in a similar fashion to apartment or FC house visitation.

Market boards, vendors (with enhanced selection, and having a vendor available that sells beast tribe materials you've unlocked, and one that has major city tradeskill merchant wares on it) and bells would be found in the hub, to encourage interaction and use of said hub, essentially turning them into player based cities.

You could even make unlockables for things like GC turnin/quartermasters, expanded materials vendors, and even test out an interface to have mannequin displays in the hub area based on who has things displayed to be sold in houses in that hub (that system needs a LOT of love. a LOT).

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Originally Posted by Hazmick

I think the housing system is fine as it is right now, just perhaps add more wards as I know some servers are super busy. Other servers are fairly quiet - on Omega for example there are empty plots all over the place, even in more popular wards like Lavender Beds.

The more systems SE add to ease the 'housing crisis', the more ways people will find to cheat the systems.

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I agree that the more SE tried to fix the system the worse it got, but that’s no excuse to not try and fix it again.

As it stands now, the biggest issue is the relocation mechanic, as this effectively means that people that already own a plot get preference over people who don’t (relocation bypasses the hidden timer), so if they’d remove that it would be great already.

My friends and I have already missed on 6 plots after camping them (one was camped for 12 hours in turns, not kidding) because someone relocated. We even found someone who wrote a script (internal, which is fine) to have their character check on the placard every second. Only problem was he was afk and was using a clicker or something similar to trigger the macro, as he kept doing the same action even after successfully buying the house. We got everything on video and immediately reported him obviously.

What upsets me though is that people almost HAVE to resort to this kind of behaviour because of SE’s poor management of the housing system. I’m not justifying it, however I do understand why someone would not want to waste days of paid time clicking furiously in front of a house.