Social interactions suffer for lack of demolition of apartments

The issue: Apartment buildings are a ghost town where majority of players doesn't play - not even speaking about someone actively visiting the place.

The cause: Apartments are not subjected to demolition.

The simple fix would be to introduce demolitions, but considering it's drastic I propose to relocate inactive apartments to back-up server freeing up the space for active players while making it possible for returned players to restore the apartment somewhere else.

Demolition is not going to increase social interaction. Also, there's plenty of apartment space for active players right now. You may not get your choice of housing district for your apartment if you're on Balmung but you can still get one.

Many still can't seem to grasp why the housing system tends to generate very little spontaneous social interaction. The bulk of the game's content does not take place inside the housing wards; therefore few players spend the bulk of their time in the housing wards and when they are there, they're generally in the instanced portion of housing, not standing outside in the ward where they will be seen by others.

If you want to generate more social interaction in the wards, then you need to create a reason for more players to be passing through the same ward instead of being divided between 240 different wards/subdivisions per world.

If you feel like your specific apartment building isn't active enough, then find one that is more to your liking and move to that building.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

If you feel like your specific apartment building isn't active enough, then find one that is more to your liking and move to that building.

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I would like to move somewhere else, main reason for the topic. Space is no issue, plenty of space everywhere in Phoeniex, it's just hard to tell which buildings are the most active. My current building has about 6 playing players out of 90. Were the inactive apartments relocated, I would have avoided the place like a plague. Apartments being sorted based on activity would make it much easier to find active places.

Also, not nice to change people's addresses. Some people love living at 4/20.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

Bit greedy of you isn't it?

That people would lose their appartments because you want to see people walk in and out of their homes?

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Yes. For the sake of active neighbourhood feeling I would be completely fine with that. Tho relocating the inactive apartments to back-up servers and having a feature to restore them somewhere else, would be more player friendly while achieving the same result.

I personally don't think that would change much. Community used to hang out more at FC's in my view until the advent of personal housing which drew a lot away given they preferred to chill at their privates instead. Some FC's try and hold events while others don't. I just don't see Apartments being a good place for social interaction given their layout. Don't think many people hang out in the lobby or outside but i could be wrong.

Social interactions center more around events/club activities which are pretty popular nowadays one only has to check party finder regardless of server in the evenings. Unless SE does more to schedule events/activities that draw people into housing areas they'll always be lacking in interactions in my view.

Houses are generally subject to demolition, but the neighborhoods continue to be the deadest, emptiest zones in the game. Curious!

It wouldn't change anything - I got an apartment in Empy with only 15 spaces. Hardly see a soul there lol, despite it being almost full now after taking a month or two to fill up completely. At least the lobby looks cute, I guess.

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Originally Posted by Archaell

I would like to move somewhere else, main reason for the topic. Space is no issue, plenty of space everywhere in Phoeniex, it's just hard to tell which buildings are the most active. My current building has about 6 playing players out of 90. Were the inactive apartments relocated, I would have avoided the place like a plague. Apartments being sorted based on activity would make it much easier to find active places.

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Have you tried asking friends and FC mates what things are like at their apartment buildings (if they have one)?

I know the building where I have the apartments for my alts has 33 or 34 filled rooms. While I don't always see someone there as I come and go, I usually run into another player there more times each week than I'll see anyone near my personal house in a year (short of friends coming specifically to visit and they do that as readily at one of my apartments as they do at my house).

Your best bet would be to focus on the apartment buildings in wards 19-24 plus any of the Empyreum wards. Those were the most recent additions to the game and so are more likely to have players that are still active. I'd also suggest looking for building with more rooms opened to visitors.

While I don't have anything against your suggestion about having "archival" wings or buildings for apartments of inactive players, I doubt SE would do it. Players would be pretty upset if they came back and their apartment wasn't where they left it with everything moved into storage. SE doesn't seem to have a way to store placement settings when housing is moved (or players wouldn't need to redecorate when relocating to another house of the same size).

What might help is if SE added more wings to apartment buildings as they once said they would be able to easily do if needed. That would help increase the number of players entering individual building, and thus increase the chance for social encounters.

Are we still pretending there is a prominent social aspect to housing to justify its arbitrary scarcity?

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Originally Posted by Archaell

The issue: Apartment buildings are a ghost town where majority of players doesn't play - not even speaking about someone actively visiting the place.

The simple fix would be to introduce demolitions

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No. Apartments should never be subject to demolition.

If you want social interaction in your apartment or house, create it. It's really very easy using the party finder.

Description: World, Ward, Plot/Apartment, subdivision or not, room # [activities]

Example 1 (house): Balmung Mist W24 P2 Hang out, relax, chat, etc

Example 2 (apartment): Balmung LB W24 LH sub R15 Hang out, relax, chat, etc

Example 3 (FC room): Balmung LB W24 P17 R10 Hang out, relax, chat, etc


All you have to do is wait for people to show up after that.

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Originally Posted by Archaell

The issue: Apartment buildings are a ghost town where majority of players doesn't play - not even speaking about someone actively visiting the place.

The cause: Apartments are not subjected to demolition.

The simple fix would be to introduce demolitions, but considering it's drastic I propose to relocate inactive apartments to back-up server freeing up the space for active players while making it possible for returned players to restore the apartment somewhere else.

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Absolutely not. Apartments are the one thing players can expect to return to, which they were specifically designed for. That is: Not to demolish with inactivity.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

Are we still pretending there is a prominent social aspect to housing to justify its arbitrary scarcity?

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Yes it's just another day in the housing forum.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

Are we still pretending there is a prominent social aspect to housing to justify its arbitrary scarcity?

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There is a social aspect to housing though I wouldn't call it prominent.

The last thing it does is justify scarcity. Scarcity doesn't drive socialization. It drives elitism, dissatisfaction and bitterness.

Apartments are sort of on the right track when it comes to what would improve the housing experience. You have a larger number of players (up to 90) filtering through the same entry spot, which increases random encounters between players. Compare that to a house where the number of players filtering through the entry spot depend on how many players are tenants of the house. For the majority of houses right now, that number is one.

So combine that aspect of apartments with a ward layout but for houses instead of apartments. Let each plot placard represent the entrance to 20 or more different houses. There would be a lot more activity in the common area outside of each house plot to fuel social encounters.

When it comes to creating a social neighborhood environment within the wards, possibly the biggest mistake SE made was allowing each house to have it's own Miniature Aetheryte and placing an Aethernet system. Because we have almost no need to travel within a ward, we lose out on what helps to make real life neighborhoods feel populated - foot and vehicle traffic.

Social interaction can't be forced. The world climate is far too volatile, culturally and socially which certainly has an effect on player base. It's only natural that it would. People seem much more introverted now. Prefer their own spaces. I've been in a few FC's with 300+ unique players and only maybe 10 or less of the same people type in chat daily and even fewer ever speak in discord.

Perhaps those that are RP'rs have different experiences with housing only because they are actively seeking a particular interaction? I've never seen a housing ward very active, bar the few times PvP events were happening cross server and someone would host at their mansion.

I really like what Jojoya has had to say. Always seems to be on the true pulse of the matter and I do hope SE reads what they post.

This part especially; "Scarcity doesn't drive socialization. It drives elitism, dissatisfaction and bitterness" --- That is what I always thought Yoshi was trying to eliminate in the game.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

When it comes to creating a social neighborhood environment within the wards, possibly the biggest mistake SE made was allowing each house to have it's own Miniature Aetheryte and placing an Aethernet system. Because we have almost no need to travel within a ward, we lose out on what helps to make real life neighborhoods feel populated - foot and vehicle traffic.

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Hard disagree. Wards never had a chance to be the social hotspot that Limsa is. There are too many settlements, wards, and subdivisions for that to be true and wards are missing several of the convenience features that make Limsa the go to place. Not having that basic QoL would have done very little to help and would have made the wards feel even worse than they are now.

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Originally Posted by GeminiReed

Hard disagree. Wards never had a chance to be the social hotspot that Limsa is. There are too many settlements, wards, and subdivisions for that to be true and wards are missing several of the convenience features that make Limsa the go to place. Not having that basic QoL would have done very little to help and would have made the wards feel even worse than they are now.

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I agree that wards would never be a social area on the scale of Limsa but then Limsa isn't akin to a neighborhood - it's akin to an old town style market center with street performers entertaining people as they come and go.

It doesn't change that players having to walk through wards to get places would have better replicated a neighborhood environment regardless of the QoL issue. It's just another example of why wards fail when it comes to what SE was presumably trying to achieve with them.