A humble suggestion with housing

I love the current housing we have with the neighborhoods and all, I think its really cool. However, I know many people have requested there be some kind of instanced housing and that got me thinking... Is there a way to just make one single ward per housing area that IS instanced? like, then people who care about having the neighborhood feel can really go for it in the non instanced wards so I can have my fancy neighborhood, but I can also know that if anyone wants a house, they can easily get one in the instanced housing ward.

Issue is more logistical from a business standpoint. Instanced housing still needs servers and storage to function which means they have to purchase and install additional hardware then configure it to operate with everything else that is already there. As for ideas to make an instanced housing area the ideas I had in the past were private islands in sea of clouds. house in a bubble underwater in like the ruby sea or something, or a personal airship home that you can anchor to what ever zone you want to call home.

Arent we supposed to get our personal farm in endwalker? Thats sort off your own personal instanced housing.

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Originally Posted by Juun

Arent we supposed to get our personal farm in endwalker? Thats sort off your own personal instanced housing.

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Still no details if there is a house involved, let alone one we can decorate or put furniture in. That being said it would be a logical spot for a solo home space if they already have an instance zone set up, only way i could this not happening is if the zone is shared in some way or possibly timed.

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Originally Posted by Juun

Arent we supposed to get our personal farm in endwalker? Thats sort off your own personal instanced housing.

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Think of it this way. If they had solved the housing problem with farms, they probably would have said. No details probably means it is just another instance with a little bit of interaction, probably closer to squadron room then house.

I really hate the wards. :X They're huge, almost always empty and really don't have much of a purpose. Wildstar had a spiffy housing option in place with the 'communities'. Their housing was instanced, but you could share one giant island with 4 of your friends. You could just run right over to your friend's house - no loading screens or anything. And the individual plots you each got were pretty massive in their own right. That would be far more ideal IMO. I don't care about sharing an enormous instance (wards) with random people I never see, but I would LOVE to be able to share a small instance with a handful of my friends.

I'm going to be real. If they removed wards, and let everyone have instance housing with a yard. I will gladly sacrifice the people who enjoy the ward system in exchange for a more fair system. :)

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

Issue is more logistical from a business standpoint. Instanced housing still needs servers and storage to function which means they have to purchase and install additional hardware then configure it to operate with everything else that is already there. As for ideas to make an instanced housing area the ideas I had in the past were private islands in sea of clouds. house in a bubble underwater in like the ruby sea or something, or a personal airship home that you can anchor to what ever zone you want to call home.

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Actually instanced housing would probably require less server resources than the current system. With wards everything is persistent so they take up server resources whether there are players in the ward or not and in my experience wards are frequently empty. Instanced housing only takes up system resources when the player is in the house. In fact it is how apartments work which SE has admitted that for all practical purposes are unlimited. The real mistake SE made was when they added apartments was they should have at a minimum made them small housing plots with exteriors and interiors. I think this would have satisfied most players since it is similar to what other MMO's do for player housing.

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Originally Posted by Moonlite

Think of it this way. If they had solved the housing problem with farms, they probably would have said. No details probably means it is just another instance with a little bit of interaction, probably closer to squadron room then house.

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I'm wondering if they are going to similar to the farms WoW had in Mists of Pandaria.

The way in which Elder Scrolls Online handles housing is quite interesting. Not only are they instanced, everybody has the ability to own one - to the point where a house bigger than a large mansion in FFXIV is offered to free to players who happen to purchase a subscription/purchase a specific expansion.

If that wasn't enough, each house is account bound and you can own a copy of every house in the game. All of which are various sizes and aesthetics.

I'd like a similar model embraced in FFXIV. Although I own a house myself, I don't particularly like the ward system as it doesn't have the 'neighbourhood feel' that is repeatedly used as an excuse for a vastly inferior system.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

The way in which Elder Scrolls Online handles housing is quite interesting. Not only are they instanced, everybody has the ability to own one - to the point where a house bigger than a large mansion in FFXIV is offered to free to players who happen to purchase a subscription/purchase a specific expansion.

If that wasn't enough, each house is account bound and you can own a copy of every house in the game. All of which are various sizes and aesthetics.

I'd like a similar model embraced in FFXIV. Although I own a house myself, I don't particularly like the ward system as it doesn't have the 'neighbourhood feel' that is repeatedly used as an excuse for a vastly inferior system.

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I've not played ESO, but that sounds fairly similar to BDO's housing system which uses phased housing. House locations are built into various towns & outskirts, and so you run right past them on your normal travels. They're not in a separate zone or anything which is nice for the immersion factor. So you just click the door, purchase the location want, and then go right on in. And each location is available to every player. They also allow you to purchase multiple locations as well if you feel the need.

I'm not saying BDO's housing is the greatest thing out there, but just providing another example of a game that makes equal housing available to all players. Instanced housing doesn't have to be restrictive like it is in XIV. I would love nothing more than for them to introduce a brand new system that is fair to everyone, but I'm resigned to the fact that most likely no major changes will happen in the game's life. I do hope I'm wrong though! :X

Course they could, problem is either:
Houses are still limited, because they are permanent instances that are always loaded.
Or, houses are unlimited so that everyone can have one, but they're instanced duties, that you have to queue into, and can therefore not queue for other duties while in your house.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

Course they could, problem is either:
Houses are still limited, because they are permanent instances that are always loaded.
Or, houses are unlimited so that everyone can have one, but they're instanced duties, that you have to queue into, and can therefore not queue for other duties while in your house.

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Wards are already their own instance, as are houses and apartments. I don't see why a new version would have to impact how we queue for duties.

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

Wards are already their own instance, as are houses and apartments. I don't see why a new version would have to impact how we queue for duties.

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You're confusing instances and zones. Which is easy to do, because for most they're interchangeable, but they function very differently.

Housing wards and houses in them are permanently loaded zones, housed on the world servers. They are limited, because they are permanent fixtures, that take up a discrete amount of space on finite servers.
Meanwhile anything that's 'unlimited', is handled by the instance servers, dungeons, raids, Bozja, etc. A constant rolling turn over of temporary instances.

If there's enough space to give everyone a permanently loaded house, then we'd already have unlimited housing plots.
There isn't, so they would need to be handled by the instance servers. Which means 'transferring' you between the world server and the instance servers, which requires a duty queue, and disconnects you from certain world server based systems, such as FC management, saddlebag, or retainers.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

The way in which Elder Scrolls Online handles housing is quite interesting. Not only are they instanced, everybody has the ability to own one - to the point where a house bigger than a large mansion in FFXIV is offered to free to players who happen to purchase a subscription/purchase a specific expansion.

If that wasn't enough, each house is account bound and you can own a copy of every house in the game. All of which are various sizes and aesthetics.

I'd like a similar model embraced in FFXIV. Although I own a house myself, I don't particularly like the ward system as it doesn't have the 'neighbourhood feel' that is repeatedly used as an excuse for a vastly inferior system.

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That doesn't sound exactly free. But it does sound like an acceptable version of gaming in 2020's. A large majority of the player base defends storage and MB space as a way for SE to make more money. I am sure that they would rally the troops to defend monetize housing. At this point also I think most people who hate modern game design would also live with some sort of monetization. Would be great if it was something simple like buy expansion. But if it was the price of 2 or 3 more retainers would anyone really blink? I think SE is missing out on two big cash cows paid housing and other SE IP trusts.

I'd like an instanced cabin in the woods, please.

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Originally Posted by Moonlite

That doesn't sound exactly free. But it does sound like an acceptable version of gaming in 2020's. A large majority of the player base defends storage and MB space as a way for SE to make more money. I am sure that they would rally the troops to defend monetize housing. At this point also I think most people who hate modern game design would also live with some sort of monetization. Would be great if it was something simple like buy expansion. But if it was the price of 2 or 3 more retainers would anyone really blink? I think SE is missing out on two big cash cows paid housing and other SE IP trusts.

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I feel the biggest issue with the current housing system is it's not changed since it's creation back in early 2.0. It started as FC accessible only and the pricing of plots was considered extremely high often resulting in FC's working together just to buy a medium or large plot. Most of the wards were empty. So down the road they let players buy personal homes. This wasn't so much an issue at the time either because only a small amount of the player base had the gil to purchase plots. However as time rolled on and inflation progressed due to the game not having gil sinks deleting gil from circulation at a rate comparable to how fast its being generated we now have a situation where an overwhelming majority of the player base has the gil needed to purchase a plot because the prices are still the same as they were years ago. It's a situation that would be like if everyone made the amount of income they have now but the prices of homes were still the same as they were back in 1950 because no one ever adjusted it as time went on.

Another thing worth consideration is that a fair amount of the housing demand is most likely being caused by the scarcity itself. Hence why things blow up over limited edition items in limited quantities and why scalpers are such an annoying problem in the real world. Mr. Tidybowl didnt need 200 rolls of toilet paper but stores were having stock shortages so he wanted to have 200 rolls of toilet paper and paid a scalper online 5x the normal price to have it.

They won't even implement a system where you can kick out trolls from your house. No way they're gonna do anything drastic.

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Originally Posted by Moonlite

That doesn't sound exactly free. But it does sound like an acceptable version of gaming in 2020's. A large majority of the player base defends storage and MB space as a way for SE to make more money. I am sure that they would rally the troops to defend monetize housing. At this point also I think most people who hate modern game design would also live with some sort of monetization. Would be great if it was something simple like buy expansion. But if it was the price of 2 or 3 more retainers would anyone really blink? I think SE is missing out on two big cash cows paid housing and other SE IP trusts.

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I play ESO, and SOME of those houses are free. if you can rack up the in-game money to buy some of those houses, and that is even if you are not subscribed to ESO plus (their equivalent to monthly subscription), you can do so. Also, there are a couple of houses that are granted to the player simply for completing a chapter/DLC quest series.

You can own every house in that game. I think if FFXIV can at least provide a similar setup, an instanced house for completing a story arc, that would help solve the housing problem. When Island Sanctuary was announced, it really thought they would include a personal instanced housing there. The game can leave the current neighborhood housings to FCs.