What is really happening to house system?

Why there are not enough houses for eveyone?

1- Some say it's because each ward takes physical space on hardware(user-side).
2- Others says it's instanced and takes processment on server side.
3- Also it can be space/process on server-side.

Well, i'd say it's 2 because all the processment are server based and the game itself(graphical content) is renderized on user-side.

If it's 2 or 3, people always says SQEX can't afford creating so many wards just that we can enjoy a "side" content.

I need to say that it isn't that expansive for SQEX to build even an dedicated server cluster just to handle housing processment.

I had a few japanese customers that only bought japanese technology, such as Fujitsu.
That's a really expansive technology for small companies, but is it expansive for SQEX?

Well I sold an Fujitsu RX2540 M5 not gonna get into many details, but this is a high performance computing series used in all kind of services providers.
The price in 2021/Jun was 110k U$D with WinServer and backup license. Also with 36 months of support.
This is a scale-out solution that can grow up with the necessities of your bussiness.

So how much CPU does the housing processment takes?
Does a 2010 game takes that much processment that new technologies cant afford?

That's where people say: "It's 35mi players, no server can process that much info!"

First, it's not 35mi players online at the same time. The peak of players on Steam(2022) is 80.580 a day, not counting on other platforms, but we are all on physically separeted datacenters. This numbers is splitted and with what really has on each server, do you think everyone will be connected at the same time on a instanced house/ward?

Second, what SQEX really need is just processing all these instanced areas. We already have NO problems related to instanced dungeons/raids which some of them are bigger than housing wards, even on launch day of Endwalker, I know the 2002 error, but not related to instance crashing, because when someone got kicked out the other players could still continue on the instanced dungeon.

Now you may say "Yeah but 110k USD for a single server isn't that expansive?" Well, since SQEX has 35mi subscribers at 13USD/monthly fee that gives 455mi USD montlhy to SQEX, which by the way had 16,85bi of net income only on dec/2021.
Now think how many servers they can buy with that.

I'm just tired of seeing the community killing itself on comments when we are not getting a real explanation on what is going on with these damn houses.

There are plenty of people begging for SQEX to fix it, we love the game that's why we want to fix it.
Maybe now after finishing a 10 years cicle of true commitment to bring players such a great story, battles and memories, we can focus on fixing what's been a problem for so long.
At least with a transparent explanation and a roadmap to fix it.

Instanced houses/wards needs a petition in-game of at least half ward that can be petitioned with gil.
Also after the petition, people needs to apply for lottery system for the plots they want to and also pay with gil.
-This would help SQEX to not oversize the servers and provide them enough time to scale it out if needed.
-This would also help with Gil inflation in the game, which is the primary reason why house has become an content.
-Cons are, you could apply for a petition for a new ward and end up not getting a plot via lottery system, but that's how lottery system works... get another petition and try again.

Keep the auto-demolition, when people loses their house other people can relocate to a more populated ward with a bonus reward.
-That helps with server over-sizing.
-Also incentives players to keep their subs on even if not playing. (Kind of a pain but well, you know...)

Large houses intent to FC but Medium and Small houses to FC and Personal buyers.
-The way the wards are designed with only 3 Large Houses is hard to compete with all personal buyers
-A solution to that is a instanced House with no neighboors that could be accessed through Friend state-teleportation or player search results.
-Also by instanced house I mean, a small piece of the ward that looks like the district that the person would like to live, like this example: https://ibb.co/sR0Dtv7
-This alone Large House could be for an FC or Personal buyer and would also need to be petitioned and bought with same costs as wards.
Cons with petitioned wards, lot of people world try a Medium House and maybe small houses get no applicants.
- We can get higher prices on Medium Houses so people would prefer small houses.

The truth is they definitely could do Instanced Housing, and the Server excuse has been an excuse for a very long time except during the COVID shipment shortages.

The real answer is simply that they've been investing into this broken system that failed to account for increasing player numbers from ~10 years ago, and now are either too scared of legacy code, or too lazy to do a permanent solution.
They're also probably afraid to piss off the players who have already invested into this broken system, and don't want to figure out how to grandfather them into the new system.

Given none of these answers would be satisfactory to their player base, so they likely just don't talk about it and keep using the server space excuse.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

The truth is they definitely could do Instanced Housing, and the Server excuse has been an excuse for a very long time except during the COVID shipment shortages.

The real answer is simply that they've been investing into this broken system that failed to account for increasing player numbers from ~10 years ago, and now are either too scared of legacy code, or too lazy to do a permanent solution.
They're also probably afraid to piss off the players who have already invested into this broken system, and don't want to figure out how to grandfather them into the new system.

Given none of these answers would be satisfactory to their player base, so they likely just don't talk about it and keep using the server space excuse.

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Same here. I am also standing on the side where I feel that it is due to old legacy codes that is causing potential problems when expanding housing wards.
And it could also be related to why the lottery system "failed" to work correctly.

I hope that SQEX will take this housing lottery bug seriously and make it an imperative to start planning a major overhurl of the housing system.

They did a stats squish for Endwalker, which is likely a huge effort on their end to make sure everything stays balanced.
Just need to hope they do it for housing.

Apartments are a form of instanced housing, but there's currently no way to place or use outdoor furnishings in them. They could potentially solve this by adding something like an instanced roof garden or garden terrace.

Obviously the technical issues are opaque to us and it might not be practical, as this would basically double the number of instanced apartment rooms and associated storage space, but it might be easier to improve the existing apartment system rather than creating an entirely new system.

More Servers! Someone tell Yoshi to meet wid Amazonman :D

With all due respect to Yoshi-P -and I don't mean that facetiously-, he and his crew need to realize that the neighborhood concept they envisioned is unsustainable now. It might have been back when it was implemented, but with the explosion in player growth, abuses of the housing system by shell FCs, and numerous other factors, it's not turning out how they intended.

They need to first make apartments more appealing to prospective in-game homeowners: accent walls like the balcony in the Pendants or the windows in the Inns. "Loft" apartments that are basically Small homes with an upstairs/downstairs or penthouses that are akin to medium houses. Numerous other concepts mentioned by others for that matter.

Then they need to seriously reconsider the divide of wards between FCs and private residences. I kid you not, the Empyrean ward on Ultros my FC is in has only five other FC houses. Five. FC houses.. Meanwhile, all but maybe 3-4 houses are taken in the private residences in the same server. Whoever did the math on dividing them up underestimated the numbers or they were trying to apply the Japan DC housing numbers to the Western ones (EU and NA), I have no clue. At the very least they ought to make it 50/50: Wards 1-12 for FCs and Wards 13-24 for personal use.

I wouldn't be surprised if Island Sanctuary is placed on the backburner for late in the 6.x cycle if not 7.0, because they can't keep putting bandaids on a leaky pipe for much longer now.

They probably have all the servers - or the means - they would need to implement an instanced housing system, but they just don't wanna change it :( I understand that it's cool to have neighbors as we have now, but I can't see it working for everyone. There won't be enough space for all players and housing will still be a rare thing to have access to. The only way I see the housing system working for everyone is by having an instanced housing system. In games like Black Desert and Revelation Online, we can see that housing works pretty well because you can easily have access to a house and there is no such thing as "not having space for more houses".

In addition to that, there are other problems with the housing system that I just can't turn a blind eye. Why when we are inside a house and queue for dungeons we come back outside the house? :confused: This is too bad and shouldn't be that way. lol Maybe with instanced houses they would be able to fix that and put the garden and the house together in a single instance.

Question from a non-techy person. Would it work to have upgradeable housing? Like, everyone buys a small and pays to upgrade the existing plot to medium and/or large?

I love this game, but the way they've been acting lately is making me really sad. so much neglect, they could put an instance system, or leave the houses as they are and increase the apartments, allowing them to be shared with friends. I still have hope that the agricultural system can compensate for the lack of a vegetable garden in the apartments, that would be an option. And please remove this ridiculous separation of private houses and FCs houses, leave them all together like they used to, you guys are doing a terrible job.

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Originally Posted by Silhouettic

Question from a non-techy person. Would it work to have upgradeable housing? Like, everyone buys a small and pays to upgrade the existing plot to medium and/or large?

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It would be an awesome idea, just the underlying problem is the availability of housing to begin with.

As an also non-techy person myself, I have a hard time believing that SE couldn't just add a system to upgrade your apartment and increase the size and scope of it so we can have all the perks of owning a house without touching the wards. Houses are instances on the inside and they do it for each type of house. Why not apartments?

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Originally Posted by Amenara

It would be an awesome idea, just the underlying problem is the availability of housing to begin with.

As an also non-techy person myself, I have a hard time believing that SE couldn't just add a system to upgrade your apartment and increase the size and scope of it so we can have all the perks of owning a house without touching the wards. Houses are instances on the inside and they do it for each type of house. Why not apartments?

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It's tottally possible and tbh that may be simple to code. Also to recode a "legacy" code there are plenty of tools to help with that, I wound't say convert the legacy code to a new one but these tools can recreate on a new language and if needed the programmer just make some fine adjustments.

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Originally Posted by Silhouettic

Question from a non-techy person. Would it work to have upgradeable housing? Like, everyone buys a small and pays to upgrade the existing plot to medium and/or large?

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If it's instanced is tottally possible to upgrade the house, just like we relocate small houses to large one. But as Corvu_V said, it needs to be a single house instanced with enough space to get the upgrade. That is not applicable to the ward design right now.

oh yay another thread asking the same dumb **** versus reading the other 200 threads for answers

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Originally Posted by SuperSxyNerd

oh yay another thread asking the same dumb **** versus reading the other 200 threads for answers

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Almost as if the developers never reply here and users aren't going to read through 10 years of posts???

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Originally Posted by SuperSxyNerd

oh yay another thread asking the same dumb **** versus reading the other 200 threads for answers

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Yay thanks for not helping at all, also if you read the other 200 threads you could read mine before commenting nonsense.

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Originally Posted by Silhouettic

Question from a non-techy person. Would it work to have upgradeable housing? Like, everyone buys a small and pays to upgrade the existing plot to medium and/or large?

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YoshiP has already stated a firm No as answer to this. The housing system memory is not designed to accommodate estate upgrades. They would need to rebuild the housing system from scratch to give players the ability to upgrade.

I wish they would go into more detail about a lot of things about housing. I think a big step forward would be decoupling the workshop and gardens from the fc houses only. IMO it only serves to encourage house hoarding to farm these materials.

Why not make an instanced "ironworks workshop" in mor dhona or an instanced garden plot area in greatloam growery? I feel like there are many possibilities that they aren't thinking about. And if they are thinking about these things, why not share it with the playerbase? Unless you can crossbreed in island sanctuary but they have been so tight lipped about that it's strange.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

YoshiP has already stated a firm No as answer to this. The housing system memory is not designed to accommodate estate upgrades. They would need to rebuild the housing system from scratch to give players the ability to upgrade.

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Honestly, I think they need to do that anyway....

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Originally Posted by Amenara

Honestly, I think they need to do that anyway....

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I don't think it entirely needs to be rebuilt from scratch, nor that it would be wise. As flawed as the system is, many players have already invested much in it. Convincing them that a new system will give them something better when they'd be losing something they've owned for several years would be a hard sell. It's the type of change that tends to lose a company a substantial amount of business even from those not directly affected.

Switch their focus from wards to instanced housing and put their resources into improving that makes more sense. Wards can be left in place for the prestige chasers who like to compete against others. I suspect that intercross gardening would remain a ward exclusive as well based on what they've said about the weather reliance and lack of weather in instances. That would keep some demand in place for ward housing even if instanced housing design copied the ward design.

Going to put the cards down.. 30-50% of the houses is not used anyway or quite alot whenever it get to it... if anything should rather aim for massive maps for La Noscae, Thanalan, The Shroud instead that includes all zones and areas on one map and make it so it take 30 minutes or more to cross the continent at max speed.

Then out in the wild let people put up houses and, and make it so if enough you can build a city with a mayor election and everything, and when enough habitants, make it possible to build an aetheryte, that people can attune to... on top of that a tax system, because it would cost some to have the city going as an upkeep.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

I don't think it entirely needs to be rebuilt from scratch, nor that it would be wise. As flawed as the system is, many players have already invested much in it. Convincing them that a new system will give them something better when they'd be losing something they've owned for several years would be a hard sell. It's the type of change that tends to lose a company a substantial amount of business even from those not directly affected.

Switch their focus from wards to instanced housing and put their resources into improving that makes more sense. Wards can be left in place for the prestige chasers who like to compete against others. I suspect that intercross gardening would remain a ward exclusive as well based on what they've said about the weather reliance and lack of weather in instances. That would keep some demand in place for ward housing even if instanced housing design copied the ward design.

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When I say instanced housing, I'm not referring to an apartment as the solution. There should still be an exterior. I typically try to refer to the idea as an instanced homestead, not an instanced house. Why shouldn't people be able to garden? The best and most fair to handle this situation is to give people literally no benefit whatsoever to owning a home in a ward. There should not be one.

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Originally Posted by Corvus_V

When I say instanced housing, I'm not referring to an apartment as the solution. There should still be an exterior. I typically try to refer to the idea as an instanced homestead, not an instanced house. Why shouldn't people be able to garden? The best and most fair to handle this situation is to give people literally no benefit whatsoever to owning a home in a ward. There should not be one.

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Oh, I didn't think you were referring to apartments at all. I know how amazing instanced housing can be from experience in other games, including a full exterior experience. It's always been disappointing that we don't have similar here.

People can still garden in house interior and apartments even now using flowerpots. What they cannot do is intercross, a specialized form of gardening. That's a technological hurdle that in the past YoshiP has said they cannot avoid. Have things changed since his statement so now they potentially can? Only they know.

I can't agree there should be no benefits to ward versus instanced housing. Each should have something that makes it stand out from the other. Part of the problem is that one what player considers a benefit may not be a benefit to another. Some players find having a house in a ward beneficial because they feel like they're in a neighborhood and don't want to be isolated in instanced housing. I find it a deterrent because I don't see them as neighborhoods, I see them as ghost towns because I almost never see another player in the ward with my personal house.

I will say there should be no economic benefit to housing and I mean literally no benefit, not just benefit by comparison. Remove gardens from houses. Other ways to obtain the items unique to gardening could be added to the game (put the Thavnairian Onions on a vendor in Thavnair, as an example). Remove workshops from houses and attach them to GC headquarters similar to how our squadron barracks are attached.

If there's going to be economic benefit to having housing, then either every player should be provided with a house that has equal economic features or there should be a recurring cost for retaining the housing to offset the economic benefit only available to the lucky few.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Oh, I didn't think you were referring to apartments at all. I know how amazing instanced housing can be from experience in other games, including a full exterior experience. It's always been disappointing that we don't have similar here.

People can still garden in house interior and apartments even now using flowerpots. What they cannot do is intercross, a specialized form of gardening. That's a technological hurdle that in the past YoshiP has said they cannot avoid. Have things changed since his statement so now they potentially can? Only they know.

I can't agree there should be no benefits to ward versus instanced housing. Each should have something that makes it stand out from the other. Part of the problem is that one what player considers a benefit may not be a benefit to another. Some players find having a house in a ward beneficial because they feel like they're in a neighborhood and don't want to be isolated in instanced housing. I find it a deterrent because I don't see them as neighborhoods, I see them as ghost towns because I almost never see another player in the ward with my personal house.

I will say there should be no economic benefit to housing and I mean literally no benefit, not just benefit by comparison. Remove gardens from houses. Other ways to obtain the items unique to gardening could be added to the game (put the Thavnairian Onions on a vendor in Thavnair, as an example). Remove workshops from houses and attach them to GC headquarters similar to how our squadron barracks are attached.

If there's going to be economic benefit to having housing, then either every player should be provided with a house that has equal economic features or there should be a recurring cost for retaining the housing to offset the economic benefit only available to the lucky few.

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Come to think of it, does housing in other benefits provide economic benefits? I think one of the reasons why people hoard houses is because they are able to generate income from having multiple houses. If having multiple houses provide zero or even net negative benefits (eg. there's a monthly gil upkeep), less people will hoard houses which could help alleviate the shortage in supply.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Oh, I didn't think you were referring to apartments at all. I know how amazing instanced housing can be from experience in other games, including a full exterior experience. It's always been disappointing that we don't have similar here.

People can still garden in house interior and apartments even now using flowerpots. What they cannot do is intercross, a specialized form of gardening. That's a technological hurdle that in the past YoshiP has said they cannot avoid. Have things changed since his statement so now they potentially can? Only they know.

I can't agree there should be no benefits to ward versus instanced housing. Each should have something that makes it stand out from the other. Part of the problem is that one what player considers a benefit may not be a benefit to another. Some players find having a house in a ward beneficial because they feel like they're in a neighborhood and don't want to be isolated in instanced housing. I find it a deterrent because I don't see them as neighborhoods, I see them as ghost towns because I almost never see another player in the ward with my personal house.

I will say there should be no economic benefit to housing and I mean literally no benefit, not just benefit by comparison. Remove gardens from houses. Other ways to obtain the items unique to gardening could be added to the game (put the Thavnairian Onions on a vendor in Thavnair, as an example). Remove workshops from houses and attach them to GC headquarters similar to how our squadron barracks are attached.

If there's going to be economic benefit to having housing, then either every player should be provided with a house that has equal economic features or there should be a recurring cost for retaining the housing to offset the economic benefit only available to the lucky few.

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That's more or less what I'm getting at of course, like if there are "benefits," they are subjective. Economic benefits should be absent. As in, selling houses should be done, forever; and company workshops/intercross gardening should be unassociated with owning a house in a ward. I am positive there is a way to unattach those things, or at the very least, create an additional way to produce the exact same things in an entirely separate system or minigame. The only "economic benefit" that should be associated with owning a house in a ward (one that, if instanced housing is done right, wouldn't be exclusive to ward housing) are people who run RP venues and charge for things there. Food, drinks, services, whatever; but that comes with an entirely separate and frankly way more creative effort.

Like really, why does intercross gardening need to be more than a minesweeper-esque basic level grid you plant things in? If you were in it for the money rather than the aesthetic, there is no reason to tie it to houses, no? It'd be like saying "Mini-cactpot is now tied to housing" and you have to put a big stupid scratch off in the middle of your yard that displays every choice you made rather than the little window that opens up when you play. Why does it even need to be complicated to produce results? Why does there need to be an incentive for it outside of fun?

Agreed. So many people want a house because they say they want a garden to cross breed since it's not possible to do it in apartments.

If you remove that, the number of ppl wanting houses would dramatically decrease since the economic benefits of owning a house is gone and the supply issue would them solve itself.

The same thing would apply to FC workshops as well. Then FC houses would just be a social thing where actual FC members and not shell FCs would want to have a house just for a place to congregate away from the city hubs.

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Originally Posted by DeNada

Agreed. So many people want a house because they say they want a garden to cross breed since it's not possible to do it in apartments.

If you remove that, the number of ppl wanting houses would dramatically decrease since the economic benefits of owning a house is gone and the supply issue would them solve itself.

The same thing would apply to FC workshops as well. Then FC houses would just be a social thing where actual FC members and not shell FCs would want to have a house just for a place to congregate away from the city hubs.

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I'm a fan of housing because I like decorating and giving my character a home. When I log off for the night, I have my character go to sleep in their bed. I might be a tad strange...

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Originally Posted by DeNada

Agreed. So many people want a house because they say they want a garden to cross breed since it's not possible to do it in apartments.

If you remove that, the number of ppl wanting houses would dramatically decrease since the economic benefits of owning a house is gone and the supply issue would them solve itself.

The same thing would apply to FC workshops as well. Then FC houses would just be a social thing where actual FC members and not shell FCs would want to have a house just for a place to congregate away from the city hubs.

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I still find the crossbreeding argument funny when there are so many houses where the garden patch is not getting used at all or it's only being used to grow Krakka Roots (why? the chocobo foods are less expensive at the Vath vendor and don't just give training XP but also the stat buff) or shards. The scarcity should be a sign to people about how annoying intercross gardening is.

I've offered to make friends complaining about a lack of access tenants of my house to use my garden patches. I was taken up on my offer twice. Both times they got about 2-3 weeks into it, said "this is dumb" (or rather they said less polite words to that effect) and gave up. I've watched other friends who did manage to get a house try it - and would have failed if I hadn't been online to catch their dying plants before it was too late.

People think they want access but the reality is only a tiny percentage will end up using it because it's too much hassle. Access to gardening becomes an excuse on why they should have a house instead of being content they will actually do.

I still challenge people who claim they want a house so they can crossbreed to first get a Thavnairian Onion seed and grow it successfully, You can do it in a flowerpot in a FC room or apartment, you only need Potting Soil available at the Housing Merchants since the special topsoils have no effect. Once it's grown, they should ask themselves if they enjoyed the process and if they feel it was worth the effort. Then they need to ask themselves if they're good with RNG disappointment for all those times they will end up with 1 Thavnairian Onion Seed and 4 Shroud Tea Seeds instead of 8 Thavnairian Onion Seeds.