Housing System & Development Suggestions

Many of us here love housing. It can encourage so many things, including social engagement, creativity, crafting, and can foster a sense of local community within the wards.

For those trying to obtain a plot, the current system can induce stress, anxiety, pressure and toxicity between players, though in my experience, the community has stayed respectful and kind towards those who do succeed in obtaining a plot, though how long this remains is uncertain.

The land acquisition system is incredibly punishing, especially for first time buyers. I understand the reasons why these measures were implemented but I would like to highlight both the negatives alongside some suggestions to positively improve the housing system in a plea for considered overhaul.

These are of course my own thoughts but it is my hope that at least some may be considered as the game continues to develop.

Please keep in mind that I do love this game and the community very much, I just feel there is so much room for improvement on this particular system that I have seen cause so much needless stress to myself and others. I apologise for the length of this post and if any of this has been repeated before in previous threads.


The current system:

• Currently a character can possess one plot of land, one apartment, one fc room and acquire FC plot.
• Personal plots require entry once every 45 days, otherwise demolished.
• FC plots require entry once every 45 days, otherwise demolished.

Free Companies rely heavily on housing features - pretty much all FC specific content is bound by furnitures (aetherwheels) and workshop, including air ship and submarine (which is housing only).

Plot Availability

When a plot becomes available it will unlock within a random time frame of 20+ hours. Anyone who already owns a plot can relocate instantly.

A player stands by a sign for any time between 1-20+ hours clicking furiously on a placard that may unlock at any time for purchase. The player can invest any amount of those hours and have any efforts negated instantly. Should for any reason a player be unable to purchase a plot (say, has items on a housing vendor from demolition) there is no prior warning and will only become apparent once the plot is available and will block said player from purchase.

Continued..

The current difficulties of the current system:

Camping a plot is a choice, yes. Those that wish to do so knowingly enter this arena. Some have more free times than others. Practically, many are unable to spend their free time in game so may have little to no chance of accessing one of the games features, thereby excluding a large chunk of the gameplay population. It seems an gross oversight that any MMO is happy to enable players to spend their free time within the game, one they are paying to play, spam clicking a sign, sometimes up to 80 clicks a minute for 17 hours (which was how my last grind went) with no guarantee of success. Some players who do choose to camp, miss sleep and food just so as to not risk suddenly losing their chance at a plot becoming available. I’ve even witnessed a player (badly) use some form of macro in an attempt to snag a plot ahead of others.

Psychologically, the time invested only encourages you to keep going, as otherwise previous time will be wasted. One big push and you ‘might’ have a shot at gaining a plot.

Any time during that period a player already owning a house may relocate even should a new buyer camp for 15 hours straight.

The RNG timer combined with ‘first click wins’ is mayhaps the worst kind of acquisition SE have implemented, this in turn potentially encourages toxic behaviour and negative feelings, which I know FFXIV strive to avoid, while encouraging positive gameplay, creativity and community engagement in so many other areas.

As it stands, demolition will take place if you do not enter your house for 45 days. Many experience no notifications and on several occasions (but not all) warning emails go to your spam inbox.

Demand of player housing still outweighs supply.

As existing house owners can relocate instantly to any plot, they could potentially buy more desirable plots for a price from another player. Such a trading market still exists, just in a different form to those of earlier years.

Some benefits of having more accessible housing system:

• Creates a social hub for more in-game communities.
• Allows more housing enthusiast communities to grow, create and inspire others.
• Creates additional relevance for crafting classes (as a large margin of available furniture comes from professions).

Obviously, I am aware that there are server limitations so not all these ideas are practical for SE to implement with their current structure, I just have hope that things in regard to this post will improve in the future.

Continued..

Housing system suggestions:

1. Have a new ward generate when all plots in the area are full. Or..

2. Have one additional ward per housing zone with a small village (think british cul-de-sac) containing for example five small standardised houses providing an instanced version of a house with an entrance portal at the gate (allowing a personalised garden from the inside). The instanced plot could be slightly more expensive than a normal small plot and can be bought outright (like apartments or other MMO’s housing structure, think BDO or ESO). This way, players can choose to have more room than an apartment, yet knowingly sacrifice the ‘exclusivity’ of a plot in the normal wards. Allowing more players to have housing may increase the supply and demand in the crafting market.

3. This option would only be applicable to current system to reduce wasted hours of several players: A wait list option per plot (that could prioritise Free Companies). When a plot becomes available, a timer of around 2 hours begins. If no interest is registered the timer resets. Those seeking a plot submit their interest via the placard (so they’re not left camping a sign for countless hours). As the system is highly RNG based anyway, the plot then is distributed to a random player on that list. A prompt is then sent to the ‘winner’ who can either accept or decline. The plot then chooses another player/FC from the list.

4. Increase the player tenant allowance a little and/or allow tenants to have private chambers.

5. Extend apartments to have two floors (with increase of furniture/storage capacity).

6. This option would only really apply if more residence options are added to meet demand: Change the 45-day timer to inactive sub for say 6 months. If a player is active in game, their plot should not be demolished.

7. Demolition: Implementation of an active in-game warning that needs dismissal e.g, “You have not entered your house in X-days, it will be demolished on <date>”.

8. Add the ability to convert your personal plot into an FC plot. I would have happily given up my small personal plot for the FC use.

9. Low priority but, additional placement options for furniture would be great for the building community (reference: ESO). Having to painstakingly bug items into place is clunky, though perhaps understandably the argument against this would be that SE doesn’t wish placement to have that flexibility. However, the reality is that players find workarounds which could be there as standard. Ruining immersion by having a floating wardrobe in a house? Well, we have giant flying whales and cars so..^^.

Continued..

Additional notes:

• Ideally a player should not have to, in effect pay, real money to maintain the house by locking you to a minimum of 6-month subscription over a year period, with threat of demolition on a 45 day timer. If a player has been subscribed for years and wishes to take a break or has financial/life trouble, they should not be punished for this, especially considering the painful system some players go through to secure a plot. Housing is an in game item you have already paid for. The threat of demolition isn’t a healthy way to keep players subscribed.
  
• A couple of sleepy misclicks while trying to attain a plot for your FC and you can accidentally relocate (I have shaky hands so I nearly made this mistake several times). A third confirmation just for this option would be ideal, as relocation is instant, timing to click the button is not of essence.
  
• You should never, ever lose items you have paid for from the Mogstation, timers or no. You have paid real money and thus such items should either be returned to player inventory or the mail (or a reclamation NPC in the main city).

Personal experience with the system:

Lastly as a point of reference for this wall of text:

• Purchase of FC plot when Shirogane ward opened up. Witnessed two friends put time aside from work to battle the server queues, disconnects, only to lose out on plots when they were empty, ready and available to buy, due to a server bug.
  
• Loss of a medium plot due to demolition notification email going into spam, I had active subscription and regular porting to house but seemingly only using the garden. Several friends have also suffered the same fate.
  
• Purchase of personal plot after server move, total time 15 hours.
  
• Purchase of FC plot after server move and rank up, total time 17 hours (3 FC members trying - 2 plots unsuccessful).

Yes these hours might seem extreme and a highly impractical (insane) waste of time, but if you want a plot, it’s what you have to do to have a decent chance, or potentially no chance, it’s a roll of the dice. It’s an entire system based on a gamble. I thought, once it’s done it’s done, and I didn’t want to waste the hours already invested, so I kept going.


Thank you for reading though this and again I apologise if there are any duplicated thoughts in here. I've done my best to present this in the most concise way possible. I've said for a long time I would put together a large post surrounding this topic so this is the result. Input is always welcome and appreciated! Best wishes for your travels in Eorzea!

-Aeyvi

The 45 day timers makes sense to me. If you havent been in your house in over a month you clearly dont need it. Best to give it to someone who does. And I dont think fcs should have priority housing. Fc housing should be separate. Giving fcs priority on houses only promotes the creation of shell fcs imo. Otherwise, not bad ideas. It was a nice read

Thanks so much for the feedback! Yeah I totally see your point, and it's totally valid. They're only a variety of suggestions and I understand some 'solutions' are imperfect :).

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Originally Posted by Novirae

Thanks so much for the feedback! Yeah I totally see your point, and it's totally valid. They're only a variety of suggestions and I understand some 'solutions' are imperfect :).

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Yeah. I have no idea how SE is gonna fix this. Instanced housing seems like their best bet. Or the separation or personal housing and fc housing (like we were promised)

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Originally Posted by IkaraGreydancer

Yeah. I have no idea how SE is gonna fix this. Instanced housing seems like their best bet. Or the separation or personal housing and fc housing (like we were promised)

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Always keep hope, maybe they already have something in the pipeline! :)

I'm looking forward to the shadow bringers expansion and its upcoming patches, because whatever lapses SE might have incurred or overlooked in terms of housing, they might change or just improve upon (in the event that they don't change the lapses) in this coming expansion.

Also, with what SE had minutely stated in the past live letters about ishgardian housing, that it will be enabled after ishgard has been reconstructed through doman enclave-like contributions. I'm hoping that this will be a form of instanced housing with its entrance enabled once a player/s achieves full reconstruction of the proposed area.

Just wanted to let you know you can go past the character limit of each post by editing your post, like for example:

[over the character limit text, can't post] <- copy this for saftey (maybe put it somewhere just in case lol)
[cut down to under the limit] <- posted
[edit post and paste the whole monster, save post] <- victory

Might not worry about that now though since if you delete a post it still leaves a shell post that you deleted it lol (but for the future it might help ^^).

Also while I prefer instanced, my own zone, housing like Wildstar (I haven't put value in the neighbor element, having been in a full housing area for a few years now) I wanted to mention that with the change that a ward grows when full it would be like LotR Online's housing which doesn't have the issues like we have, so.. your solution has been implemented and works ;).

The British cul de sac thing sounds super cute :).

I think if they could get apartments up to the speed of houses (size upgrades, like the floors you suggested) and a balcony/garden area (full garden support and outdoor furnishing) then we'd be in some pretty good shape (still people might want a physical location out there but at least we could start saying things like apartments are quite equal to house). I'm actually curious if Ishgard is going to be fancy places like BDO basically.

Whatever happens I hope that both the barrier to housing can be lowered and the supply raised to meet the new demand, I feel housing is a brilliant concept for an MMORPG (make a home away from home.. have a home!) so it's something I hope they can get everyone into and also then improve on with new systems and interactions.

Best wishes back at you :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shougun

Just wanted to let you know you can go past the character limit of each post by editing your post, like for example:

[over the character limit text, can't post] <- copy this for saftey (maybe put it somewhere just in case lol)
[cut down to under the limit] <- posted
[edit post and paste the whole monster, save post] <- victory

Might not worry about that now though since if you delete a post it still leaves a shell post that you deleted it lol (but for the future it might help ^^).

Also while I prefer instanced, my own zone, housing like Wildstar (I haven't put value in the neighbor element, having been in a full housing area for a few years now) I wanted to mention that with the change that a ward grows when full it would be like LotR Online's housing which doesn't have the issues like we have, so.. your solution has been implemented and works ;).

The British cul de sac thing sounds super cute :).

I think if they could get apartments up to the speed of houses (size upgrades, like the floors you suggested) and a balcony/garden area (full garden support and outdoor furnishing) then we'd be in some pretty good shape (still people might want a physical location out there but at least we could start saying things like apartments are quite equal to house). I'm actually curious if Ishgard is going to be fancy places like BDO basically.

Whatever happens I hope that both the barrier to housing can be lowered and the supply raised to meet the new demand, I feel housing is a brilliant concept for an MMORPG (make a home away from home.. have a home!) so it's something I hope they can get everyone into and also then improve on with new systems and interactions.

Best wishes back at you :)

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Thanks so much for the additional info! Wish I'd have known this when I posted hehe, would have saved me panic posting 4 segments but oh well, at least it's all there! I'm note entirely sure what you're referencing with the solution already being implemented but perhaps I'm just reading it incorrectly! I really do hope at least they opt for the instancing option, especially with the potential Ishgard housing as they know that it's such a huge wish from the community. I can't wait to start the rebuilding quests!

Your expansion on the apartments idea sounds lovely and we can only hope! Thank you so much for reading and the constructive feedback, I was super nervous about posting to the forum as I rarely do it but really thankful it's been generally well received so far! I can't emphasise enough that these are only suggestions and thoughts so after a particularly stressful housing weekend I felt the need to at least try to do my bit and take action by posting. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Novirae

Thanks so much for the additional info! Wish I'd have known this when I posted hehe, would have saved me panic posting 4 segments but oh well, at least it's all there! I'm note entirely sure what you're referencing with the solution already being implemented but perhaps I'm just reading it incorrectly! I really do hope at least they opt for the instancing option, especially with the potential Ishgard housing as they know that it's such a huge wish from the community. I can't wait to start the rebuilding quests!

Your expansion on the apartments idea sounds lovely and we can only hope! Thank you so much for reading and the constructive feedback, I was super nervous about posting to the forum as I rarely do it but really thankful it's been generally well received so far! I can't emphasise enough that these are only suggestions and thoughts so after a particularly stressful housing weekend I felt the need to at least try to do my bit and take action by posting. :)

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Np :).

For already being implemented solution I meant Lord of the Rings (the mmorpg) has a ward system similar to FFXIV but the number of wards automatically increases when one is full. I was just saying a game with a system similar to our own has implemented growing wards, and saying "they have it, it seems to work for them". :P. It's true each game has its own code and so its not like "look all you have to do is copy paste their code" lol if only it was that easy, but it is nice to reference real things sometimes to be proof of concept. So I was just letting you know about another game that sort of fit what you were talking about ^_^.

It'll definitely be interesting to see what happens with Ishgard. Good luck to us all, SE included lol. Really hope something happens, I even wrote a bit on airship housing just as a "maybe this?" lol (even if they add good different instanced housing I still want some more time with airships in some way). Although personally would be in awe of Wildstar (an mmo) housing but that's a complex and big system (albeit very impressive system imo). Full upgrade apartments would be decent though, and something like it "might" be what Ishgard does (we don't know yet to say for sure, could just be another normal ward, or something not housing).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shougun

For already being implemented solution I meant Lord of the Rings (the mmorpg) has a ward system similar to FFXIV but the number of wards automatically increases when one is full. I was just saying a game with a system similar to our own has implemented growing wards, and saying "they have it, it seems to work for them". :P. It's true each game has its own code and so its not like "look all you have to do is copy paste their code" lol if only it was that easy, but it is nice to reference real things sometimes to be proof of concept. So I was just letting you know about another game that sort of fit what you were talking about ^_^.

It'll definitely be interesting to see what happens with Ishgard. Good luck to us all, SE included lol. Really hope something happens, I even wrote a bit on airship housing just as a "maybe this?" lol (even if they add good different instanced housing I still want some more time with airships in some way). Although personally would be in awe of Wildstar (an mmo) housing but that's a complex and big system (albeit very impressive system imo). Full upgrade apartments would be decent though, and something like it "might" be what Ishgard does (we don't know yet to say for sure, could just be another normal ward, or something not housing).

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They've stated in the past that it's impossible with how the game is coded to have dynamic wards because all servers have to have the same number of wards. It's an unfortunate way to have things coded. Since every world has to have the same number of wards, they're not going to give Balmung enough houses for everyone when there have been plenty of servers with 1/3 of their wards empty. It just wouldn't be smart financially since all the housing wards also run constantly. :-(

I would LOVE to be able to expand apartments! It's an idea that's been floating around since soon after apartments showed up, and it's something they said they would look into, I'm not sure if anything ever came of it. It would be an amazing idea imo! And since not everyone wants to have an outdoor area of their house, it could help give people their own space without them wanting to buy a house in the wards.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MizArai

They've stated in the past that it's impossible with how the game is coded to have dynamic wards because all servers have to have the same number of wards. It's an unfortunate way to have things coded. Since every world has to have the same number of wards, they're not going to give Balmung enough houses for everyone when there have been plenty of servers with 1/3 of their wards empty. It just wouldn't be smart financially since all the housing wards also run constantly. :-(

I would LOVE to be able to expand apartments! It's an idea that's been floating around since soon after apartments showed up, and it's something they said they would look into, I'm not sure if anything ever came of it. It would be an amazing idea imo! And since not everyone wants to have an outdoor area of their house, it could help give people their own space without them wanting to buy a house in the wards.

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Oh yeah I know why they said it's impossible and I know it's probably not the cute response but I just give a "so fix it then" to that lol. I mean they said the same thing about chocobos and DF queue but they found a way. I'm not asking them to deliver me the world in two months but I will pound the gentle drum :D and pray they're doing/figuring something out behind the scenes OR even longer term game in that they consider these things for the next MMORPG they're making. I try not to be rude about it (never my intent), but it's just something I don't think they should be satisfied with it being so rigged. So even if it's literally impossible for them to fix it without rebuilding all of FFXIV (meaning it wont happen ever here) I hope I can be part of the sand storm that makes sure next time they build a system they account for a much higher dynamic growth.

From other bits of info as well you can tell they code the old (every bit of info matters dearly and must be calculated) style, I mean Yoshida has said as much on how they've constructed everything with exact info (I think it was a response to something about their architecture being very memory conscious compared to other games). In a overly drastic (lol) simplification its the good ol' using the string class vs using a character array of exact value.

I think the apartments being improved would definitely help a lot. I also suggested airships in what I feel would be a memory efficient format (compared to housing at least) to further lessen no home concepts in this game or why I attempted to detail a possible glamour book (log) that accounted for most items in the game like WoW (and some other mmos) while being lower memory (I think). So it's not like I want to throw a tantrum and offer nothing, :P. Whenever I have an issue I try to give some concept of what I think might alleviate it. That said I have no intention of stopping to ask them to become dynamic even though I know they said they can't (right now - like they said about chocobos and DF, I believe they can figure it out or will figure it out for their next game).

On housing particularly though its important to me that everyone has a home and I think earlier the better. I think it's just a nice capstone to the whole getaway world away from reality fantasy experience (home in your getaway game), and think it should be capitalized more. Although that doesn't mean I think everything should be given (large mansion everything upgraded sort of thing).. I strongly believe in powerful long progression too.

• Offering larger apartments would definitely help.
• I keep seeing rumors about Ishgard housing... so that would help, too, even if it wouldn't fix the root of the problem.
• I like the idea of letting tenants have private chambers. Maybe even just... stick a door to them outside the house. Sub-basement apartment. :P
• If we're really going to stick with the ward system, though... I've seen a lot of suggestions for a lottery of some kind on who gets houses that are demolished. It's not ideal, but it's better than bashing your head against your keyboard spam clicking a placard for an entire day to no avail. I've seen similar ward systems with an auction system for this, but then you end up with insane prices on the houses (had a fun time getting a house in Aion...). Maybe a weighted lottery so the first 20 people have higher odds of winning, or something.
• Not sure if it's feasible or even possible, but just... adding more houses to current wards. Or adding new types of plots - plots with more than one house, sort of like a mini apartment/townhouse where 2-3 people can sit on the same plot and you're buying space on it. Same amount of data used probably (idk, not a server expert) but you could fit more houses in less space without having it look too cramped.
• And yeah... some kind of separate FC housing system. Maybe an FC only ward, or large FC apartments, or something like that. Something so FCs aren't competing with solo folks quite as much.

Thank you so much for all your suggestions, input and replies, really do appreciate you taking the time to read and reply (I will reply at greater length soon, just wanted to say a thank you so far)! :o