Why neighbourhoods ?

The idea of neighbourhood and “socializing in a ward “ is cute but I promise you 99% of the people 99% of the time are NOT present at the FC house or private house at the same time same day so that imaginary socializing doesn’t happen … with FFXIV having worst housing system in the world so far and still can’t provide a solution for housing just move to instanced housing and give everyone a proper chance .

What's wrong with... Just expanding the system properly?

I don't see how instanced housing can only be a thing if we delete the wards.

Am in favour of having options and you should be too! ^^

Did you just assume that there is no one socializing in a ward among all data centers, and all servers, therefore it's fine to delete it, and turn housing to solo private instance?
Why are you so eager in dismissing the current system that we have, and switching to other completely new untested system that might upset more people? Just because it's working in Elder Scrolls Online doesnt mean it would work in FFXIV.

Instead of completely destroying it and built something new. Why not just improve what we already have. make the wards grows as the server population needs. It's 2022, there is no way their servers unable to handle more than 24.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

Because excluding 95% of the playerbase from this system is apparently justifiable because some players like to pretend they're in a neighborhood.


Yes people actually defend this system and this is their argument.



We've been "improving" what we have since 2.0.

It hasn't worked.

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They haven't been improving, lottery isn't improvement, it's just workaround. What I'd call improvement is increasing the wards size to 64 for every housing zone at the very least. It's a permanent solutions if the wards can grow as needed once the existing wards got filled up.

I don't understand why people think it's a rocket science when scalable, on-demand, cloud computing exists.

It's hilarious to me when I see people asking for more wards due to personal housing while also seeing people whine about the lack of players in housing wards due to... personal housing.

Because excluding 95% of the playerbase from this system is apparently justifiable because some players like to pretend they're in a neighborhood.


Yes people actually defend this system and this is their argument.

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Originally Posted by Heh

Did you just assume that there is no one socializing in a ward among all data centers, and all servers, therefore it's fine to delete it, and turn housing to solo private instance?
Why are you so eager in dismissing the current system that we have, and switching to other completely new untested system that might upset more people? Just because it's working in Elder Scrolls Online doesnt mean it would work in FFXIV.

Instead of completely destroying it and built something new. Why not just improve what we already have. make the wards grows as the server population needs. It's 2022, there is no way their servers unable to handle more than 24.

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We've been "improving" what we have since 2.0.

It hasn't worked.

I don't think the neighbourhoods and the concept of socialization-- or at least having a place seem alive is that bad.

However, it is when it's such an overstated notion and comes at the cost of a lot of other things. It's nice, sure, but it's not the absolutely rousing element that some people (YoshiP and co included) seem to believe it is.

I'm not a proponent of ripping it out for those who really like it, but personally, it doesn't do much for me personally. I'm more so the type to voluntarily and mutually hang with the few people I really enjoy playing with, rather than stick myself into larger masses of people and "soak in the atmosphere."

In the FC I am in, the FC members often gather around nearby the FC house and the Market Board.
But that said, the neighbourhoods concept will only truly shine if the entire FC is filled with active FCs with active members, and not FCs with min. (4people FC) just to grab a house in the FC-only wards.

I think RP communties use them more though, famous RP venues always have long queues.

For my personal house, it's just me and another friend hanging out there since we have MB and summoning bell, and as a quiet spot to do daily roulettes and to chill.
The plots around my house are like abandoned houses, so inactivity is also a problem.

Maybe once they enable the auto-demolition timer, and set it to a lower duration, perhaps it might help in encouraging more socialization in these "neighbourhoods"?

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Originally Posted by Heh

Why not just improve what we already have. make the wards grows as the server population needs. It's 2022, there is no way their servers unable to handle more than 24.

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If the lottery system was the improvement in 2022, can't wait to see what they come up with in 2044 considering housing was released in 2014 or so and each time they touch the system, it becomes more and more of a dumpster fire lol

Im apart of a relatively active FC. Active as in that not only do we have players on during early hours you're more likely to see us around our FC house in the evenings. I've seen random players come up in surprise like "wow an active fc" but they're only referring to seeing players rather than seeing an active chat.
But the constant surprise given by passerby's/non FC players shows also how practically nonexistent the "neighborly" aspect of neighborhoods are.
But it's because players don't stand and hang out at all hours of the day at owned plots which answers the why.

I feel that to improve on it would have to happen in large chunks, and not everyone would be on board bc some players like this system or are content with it.
I personally wouldn't know where to start w/o gutting it.

What I'd do is make instances and also keep the wards.

For instanced, FC and personal houses are kept separate from each other with exceptions.
All sized FC houses can be surrounded by x number of potential plots that can be purchased by the members of said FC or just friends, not necessarily fc mates.
Similar to a manor surrounded by a village or estate with lots of acreage. Each instanced FC would operate this way without infringing on other FCs and housing wards.
Empty plots would have overgrowth or look natural to the area before being built on, maybe freedom to place houses where ever on the plot rather than a pre-determined space allowing for more creative freedom keeping it from being just a cul-de-sac. Also with this, any owned personal house can choose to have existing player owned houses near them by adding a player as a friend to their instance or to allow themselves to be added to an instance.
But friends with plots aren't automatically added, it's a separate feature. But it would allow players to create their own communities without taking away from another player's experiences I feel.
Honestly though, I think instanced should just be personal housing and not FCs.

I didn't play wow long or experience anything with garrisons, but I did play Wildstar which had instanced housing and it didn't feel lonely, your neighbors were your friends housing plots.

I don't mind neighborhoods but that doesn't mean I'm entirely in favor of them. I have a shared personal small house plot located at a tiny corner in The Goblet that's surrounded by undecorated nearly empty FC houses owned likely by the same person/people for crafting purposes.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

Because excluding 95% of the playerbase from this system is apparently justifiable because some players like to pretend they're in a neighborhood.


Yes people actually defend this system and this is their argument.



We've been "improving" what we have since 2.0.

It hasn't worked.

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They haven't been improving, lottery isn't improvement, it's just workaround. What I'd call improvement is increasing the wards size to 64 for every housing zone at the very least

The last thing they want it to turn housing into garrisons like in wow and basically isolate players. In neighborhoods you are still in the public eye so to say. The last thing SE would want to do is emulate wow and have players isolated alone in instanced areas. If you want the housing neighborhoods to be alive then spend more time there and grt involved. Host your own events in them. Do something besides crying on the forums and demanding a solution be handed to you.

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Originally Posted by Heh

They haven't been improving, lottery isn't improvement, it's just workaround. What I'd call improvement is increasing the wards size to 64 for every housing zone at the very least

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I prefer permanent solutions instead of chasing a problem but maybe I'm a minority in that.

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Originally Posted by BellBixbite

The last thing they want it to turn housing into garrisons like in wow and basically isolate players. In neighborhoods you are still in the public eye so to say. The last thing SE would want to do is emulate wow and have players isolated alone in instanced areas. If you want the housing neighborhoods to be alive then spend more time there and grt involved. Host your own events in them. Do something besides crying on the forums and demanding a solution be handed to you.

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They're not alive now. Even when RP venues hold a party, they're INSIDE the house, inside an instance. The actual neighborhood is still a ghost town.
I don't understand why you think things would be different. Any isolation is done on a player by player preference, not by a system itself.

I like seeing other houses (except for ugly Moogle monstrosities) as well as other players in the area. We actually made a linkshell for our old neighborhood, and several people on my friend list are former neighbors. I would fairly regularly encounter people I didn't know, but who lived in the area, at the market board. Many of us log in or out at the FC house, and we will often be seen outside using the market board, practicing against the target dummy, crafting, etc.. It has been fun wandering around and talking to people in Empyreum as well as people are moving in.

That being said, it seems to me one of the biggest complaints people have about apartments is that they can't place (or use) outdoor housing items, including some (often rather nice) seasonal event rewards. I could imagine them fixing this eventually by either 1) allowing outdoor housing items to be placed on the island or 2) adding instanced garden terraces or roof gardens to the apartments.

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Originally Posted by Avenger

adding instanced garden terraces or roof gardens to the apartments.

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I want my rooftop beer garden venue NAO, kktxhbai.

One big problem standing in the way of any hypothetical solution is that we're still occasionally hitting server instance caps - as in the "extreme server load, you can't zone in, enjoy spamming your doorway for 10+ minutes to get into any kind of house/apartment" instance caps. It's possible this limit is artificially low for what the current server environment can handle, but if it's not.. there's not really a fast solution other than more servers, which is exactly the problem we're in anyway. Barring an easy performance breakthrough, you're looking at probably months of code refactoring.

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Originally Posted by Avenger

I like seeing other houses (except for ugly Moogle monstrosities) as well as other players in the area. We actually made a linkshell for our old neighborhood, and several people on my friend list are former neighbors. I would fairly regularly encounter people I didn't know, but who lived in the area, at the market board. Many of us log in or out at the FC house, and we will often be seen outside using the market board, practicing against the target dummy, crafting, etc.. It has been fun wandering around and talking to people in Empyreum as well as people are moving in.

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same, i hate moogle and shirogane houses.
first house i saw in empyreum was a shirogane house and its so ugly.

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Originally Posted by hotakako

But that said, the neighbourhoods concept will only truly shine if the entire FC is filled with active FCs with active members, and not FCs with min. (4people FC) just to grab a house in the FC-only wards.

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That'll never happen. The concept around Free companies was basically groups of players working gto gather to get stuff done. To promote teamwork and bonding. The neighbourhood concept was an extension of that..

The problem is they never gave players any of the content to support that concept. Actually FC based endgame content or even the age old idea that FCs could summon primals in the open world against mighty bosses. And the sky across the entire zone would change when you did. Set ablaze in flame if you summoned ifrit or a truly chaotic storm if tou summoned ramuh.. just one of many broken promises regarding FCs.

The result is that FCs are nothing more than a glorified chat channel and most of the connections within them are often incredibly superficial. That and the games big push to be a single player rpg and not an MMO.

It's evident in almost every aspect of the game.. even raiding. Where the difficulty isn't the content. Its getting people to work together and do it..

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Originally Posted by Oizen

I prefer permanent solutions instead of chasing a problem but maybe I'm a minority in that.



They're not alive now. Even when RP venues hold a party, they're INSIDE the house, inside an instance. The actual neighborhood is still a ghost town.
I don't understand why you think things would be different. Any isolation is done on a player by player preference, not by a system itself.

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Have you been to rp venues lately. Many host outside now in the public areas and front yards of their plots

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Originally Posted by BellBixbite

Have you been to rp venues lately. Many host outside now in the public areas and front yards of their plots

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I go to RP venues and I still don't see why instanced housing would be a bad thing. The venues that host things like that are far and in between, anyways. And most "public" rp spots tend to be held outside the wards in the outside areas (Ishgard, Rhalgar's Reach, ect). Still doesn't change the fact that wards are mostly useless outside of that and the RP portion who even uses the wards are more than likely miniscule in comparison to the rest of the population. Please stop using RPing as an excuse lol

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Oizen

I prefer permanent solutions instead of chasing a problem but maybe I'm a minority in that.



They're not alive now. Even when RP venues hold a party, they're INSIDE the house, inside an instance. The actual neighborhood is still a ghost town.
I don't understand why you think things would be different. Any isolation is done on a player by player preference, not by a system itself.

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It's a permanent solutions if the wards can grow as needed.

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Originally Posted by Heh

It's a permanent solutions if the wards can grow as needed.

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They haven't been able to grow as needed yet, what makes you think they'll be able to meet the demand in the future just by adding a few wards every couple years?

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

They haven't been able to grow as needed yet, what makes you think they'll be able to meet the demand in the future just by adding a few wards every couple years?

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Not adding wards every couple of years. But adding wards once the existing one already get filled up. If Wangyuan Shengtang could do it, I don't understand why Square Enix couldn't