The Solution to the Housing Dilema

Instanced. Housing.

There. I just solved the entire issue of the lack of supply to meet demand.

Wow no one has ever suggested such a thing!!

No thanks. I like the neighborhood feel to the wards.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

No thanks. I like the neighborhood feel to the wards.

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What neighborhoods?

Also once again, why does instanced housing mean wards have to go away? Why not have both?

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Originally Posted by Ransu

No thanks. I like the neighborhood feel to the wards.

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I just rode around the ward where my FC's house is. There are 18 out of 30 plots occupied. Those 18 FCs have about 300 members collectively.

Went past every house. Went past the vendors. Went into the hot springs area. Went past the jumping puzzle towers. Went by the apartment building.

Silent. Empty of life other than me.

It's not a neighborhood, it's a ghost town.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

I just rode around the ward where my FC's house is. There are 18 out of 30 plots occupied. Those 18 FCs have about 300 members collectively.

Went past every house. Went past the vendors. Went into the hot springs area. Went past the jumping puzzle towers. Went by the apartment building.

Silent. Empty of life other than me.

It's not a neighborhood, it's a ghost town.

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Not even the apartment have life in them lol. You can go into the outside/lobby of the ones with active players/lots of rented out spaces in them and hear birdsong ambience in each and every one of them, most times you'll see nothing, maybe at most you'll see a single person by the marketboard. You'll be lucky seeing a single soul in the lobby. Where's my neighborhood feel for apartments?!

but muh neighborhood feel

keeping this totally excuses the fact this system is quite literally excluding 95% of the playerbase.

It's a pride problem with the Director. It's why we are in the situation we are with housing. That's it.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

but muh neighborhood feel

keeping this totally excuses the fact this system is quite literally excluding 95% of the playerbase.

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The mistake was allowing private ownership. The original intent was for the housing wards to be for FC's only and they should have left it that way.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

The mistake was allowing private ownership. The original intent was for the housing wards to be for FC's only and they should have left it that way.

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The mistake was to grow crops. The original intent was for homo sapians to only hunt and gather and they should have left it that way.

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Originally Posted by Brygd

The mistake was to grow crops. The original intent was for homo sapians to only hunt and gather and they should have left it that way.

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Some anthropologists believe that the motivation to grow crops was to produce alcoholic beverages.
Unfortunately, there's always someone who wants free beer at someone else's expense.
So crops -> raiding -> war -> the military-industrial complex -> endless wars ... all because of booze.

[Yes, this is slightly allegorical -- but anthropologists have indeed put forth that theory.]

The fact that you're able to own two houses is part of the problem. I don't care if one is personal and the other is an FC either. With the limited availability of housing in this game there should be 1 house per account. full stop.

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Originally Posted by fishsticks

The fact that you're able to own two houses is part of the problem. I don't care if one is personal and the other is an FC either. With the limited availability of housing in this game there should be 1 house per account. full stop.

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So you are saying I should give up my well used NA small FC home leaving my members homeless and just keep my personal large OCE home - alone in it's ward - to fill your punitive needs?

This is my current view on OCE. Please do carefully note just how busy it is!

https://i.gyazo.com/4388b4828c48d27e...8c42856972.jpg

And for that, you want to punish my still busy FC in completely another country?


I think it's clearly better not to think up cruel and unusual punishments for strangers but instead push SE to look at housing and make it better.

I mean, the OCE thing is a problem in itself. It was a mistake to open OCE servers honestly. I see this happen in almost every game that opens up OCE servers. Few players are willing to leave their current servers and the OCE servers just end up a ghost town.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

It was a mistake to open OCE servers honestly.

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Doesn't change the housing situation on NA to the worse one iota.

Without allowing you to derail based on false thoughts, Point is the poster above wants to punish ALL FC leaders. And we really need to stop punishing other players who are following the rules not just in word but in spirit.

Her system means an FC leader can't take a break for a month to deal with RL, because what officer would want to give up their own home to run the FC?

Punishing other players is not the solution to this, it's wasted effort and just causes friction - people need to direct that energy towards SE and stop attacking other players.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

Doesn't change the housing situation on NA to the worse one iota.

Without allowing you to derail based on false thoughts, Point is the poster above wants to punish ALL FC leaders. And we really need to stop punishing other players who are following the rules not just in word but in spirit.

Her system means an FC leader can't take a break for a month to deal with RL, because what officer would want to give up their own home to run the FC?

Punishing other players is not the solution to this, it's wasted effort and just causes friction - people need to direct that energy towards SE and stop attacking other players.

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The problem I have with all these punitive approaches that seem so popular, Shibi, is that they won't fix ANYTHING. The demand for housing far FAR exceeds what can be supplied with all of these punitive measures enacted. The ONLY solution is to provide more housing. And yet, we constantly get these vindictive posts being made calling for punitive measures. I do not own a house. I might not ever get a chance to own a house (I will keep trying though). I will NEVER support vindictive measures being applied to those who do own houses.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

Doesn't change the housing situation on NA to the worse one iota.

Without allowing you to derail based on false thoughts, Point is the poster above wants to punish ALL FC leaders. And we really need to stop punishing other players who are following the rules not just in word but in spirit.

Her system means an FC leader can't take a break for a month to deal with RL, because what officer would want to give up their own home to run the FC?

Punishing other players is not the solution to this, it's wasted effort and just causes friction - people need to direct that energy towards SE and stop attacking other players.

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I mean...on gilgamesh there's an entire ward owned by a single FC, so their complaint is valid. I don't really think owning multiple homes should be allowed either.

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Originally Posted by Greyhawk

It's a pride problem with the Director. It's why we are in the situation we are with housing. That's it.

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i have been saying this for months and months.

Yoshida will not just suck up his pride and admit he was wrong.

I think instanced housing will more likely nuke the capital cities - the quicksands and aetherytes as eventually people sink deeper into enclaves.

Right now we have the luxury of easy to find locations being the popular spot - I would be wary of doing anything that dilutes the population too much.

Alternatively you should be limited to 1 house per Data center...period.

If you want a private; go nuts; if you choose to make your home a FC house then you would get provided with a upscaled "room" in said FC house for free based on its side.
Then allow players to put houses up on the market - similar to a market board with a upper cap on what they can ask for as the price - allowing people to sell off their homes without raking the market over the goals. Note in the TOS that selling outside this system is punishable and crack down on enforcement for a few weeks. Hell extra points if you put in a system where folks can "tag" your placard with interest incase you wish to tell to them outright.

End result is that players would be able to get a more "certain" means to acquire a home.
This reduces the amount of 4 man FC's buying up all the land to run workshops
This increases the housing supply dramatically and gives everyone a realistic avenue to work toward as opposed to playing spin the bottle.

I wish they had thought to include a gardening allotment to go with the apartments when they were first introduced. Giving people a means to access the gardening feature would go a long way towards making apartments a good alternative to non-instanced housing. Adding a second or third floor to the apartments or an outside balcony would also add hugely to their appeal.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

I just rode around the ward where my FC's house is. There are 18 out of 30 plots occupied. Those 18 FCs have about 300 members collectively.

Went past every house. Went past the vendors. Went into the hot springs area. Went past the jumping puzzle towers. Went by the apartment building.

Silent. Empty of life other than me.

It's not a neighborhood, it's a ghost town.

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That would be such an easy fix if they would
incentivise being in wards more. Like an EXP buff if you stay there for a few minutes. Something of that nature.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

No thanks. I like the neighborhood feel to the wards.

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What neighbourhood feel?
This argument always comes up yet every ward I have ever seen, unless there is an event happening there, has always been a ghost town.

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Originally Posted by Ayan_Calvesse

I think instanced housing will more likely nuke the capital cities - the quicksands and aetherytes as eventually people sink deeper into enclaves.

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Not true. Those players hang out there because they like to see all the players coming and going (or be seen). Most of them will already have an apartment or even a house if they have an interest in housing but still prefer to be at the Aetherytes. If they wanted to be AFKing in housing, they'd already be doing it.

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Originally Posted by Gaspodia

I wish they had thought to include a gardening allotment to go with the apartments when they were first introduced. Giving people a means to access the gardening feature would go a long way towards making apartments a good alternative to non-instanced housing. Adding a second or third floor to the apartments or an outside balcony would also add hugely to their appeal.

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We have gardening in apartments via the flowerpots. If there's a seed that can be grown, you can do it in a flowerpot.

What players can't do with the flowerpots is produce new seeds via intercross. The vast majority wouldn't touch intercross even if they had a house. The majority of those left who give it a try will end up stopping after a month.

I know people dream of having cheap Thavnairian Onions but in all honesty you're better off buying the onion from the marketboard then spend all that time it takes to produce the onion seed and grow the onion doing other things that would earn more gil than you paid for the onion. The layers of RNG involved (will I even get a seed and will it be the one I want if I do?) can be very frustrating.

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

That would be such an easy fix if they would
incentivise being in wards more. Like an EXP buff if you stay there for a few minutes. Something of that nature.

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Even something like that wouldn't help. If I'm at my plot 60 house, player A is at their plot 42 house and player B is at their plot 33 house, we'll never see each other because we're too far apart. Never mind all the players who own the other houses in the ward who either aren't online or had already stopped at their houses to get their buff and are in other areas doing other content. Never mind all the players in other wards who might own the same plot numbers and even be there but won't be seen because they're in different wards.

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Originally Posted by Shazzinoth

What neighbourhood feel?
This argument always comes up yet every ward I have ever seen, unless there is an event happening there, has always been a ghost town.

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I get the impression that some people feel that it's the buildings and not the people who live/work in those buildings that create a neighborhood.

They feel how they feel, can't argue that even if you don't feel the same way.

It's still not a reason to justify a system that doesn't allow every player to get a house if they want one.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

I know people dream of having cheap Thavnairian Onions but in all honesty you're better off buying the onion from the marketboard then spend all that time it takes to produce the onion seed and grow the onion doing other things that would earn more gil than you paid for the onion. The layers of RNG involved (will I even get a seed and will it be the one I want if I do?) can be very frustrating.

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Agreed. My spouse gardens for the challenge involved in Thav Onions, not because it saves any money.
Lots of other activities yield more than enough gil to buy a Thav Onion in the time you have to invest in growing one.

And you'll probably never make back the price of a housing plot by growing stuff there.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

The mistake was allowing private ownership. The original intent was for the housing wards to be for FC's only and they should have left it that way.

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Yeah because things don't change over the course of time, that excuse is horrible.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

We have gardening in apartments via the flowerpots. If there's a seed that can be grown, you can do it in a flowerpot.

What players can't do with the flowerpots is produce new seeds via intercross. The vast majority wouldn't touch intercross even if they had a house. The majority of those left who give it a try will end up stopping after a month.

I know people dream of having cheap Thavnairian Onions but in all honesty you're better off buying the onion from the marketboard then spend all that time it takes to produce the onion seed and grow the onion doing other things that would earn more gil than you paid for the onion. The layers of RNG involved (will I even get a seed and will it be the one I want if I do?) can be very frustrating.

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I expect you are right, but I think it's important to give everyone the same chance at experiencing this part of the game and a balcony where a plot could be added or a plot at a separate allotment that's tied to the apartment would give them that.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

No thanks. I like the neighborhood feel to the wards.

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Me too, i love the ghost towns & never seeing anyone there as if it were abandoned
such a good system

I don't think we will get instanced housing but I 100% am for it

The housing needs a full overhaul- I do think the wards need to be left for FCs but make private house instances which are all cottage sized that you can upgrade through donating/ crafting etc (like the doma & firmament) and after reaching a certain limit, your house increases in size & you can add more garden plots/ get more space etc
This won't happen so my other solution is listed below

In the meantime:
FC rooms & Apartments also need to be priced evenly & expanded upon by increasing their size & adding rooms/ floors and introducing a roommate option as well as a garden if someone wants it
The new house Wards when they are eventually added, need to be made fully private wards

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Originally Posted by Silverbane

And you'll probably never make back the price of a housing plot by growing stuff there.

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Shards. One Deluxe Garden Patch growing shards using just normal potting soil is still about 20k gil a day. You'd earn the cost of the most expensive small plot back in 6 months.

Use Shroud topsoil to increase yield (depending on the going price or if you're buying it with tomestones) and you'd get that gil back even faster.

People are so obsessed with Thavnairian Onion prices that they overlook much simpler yet still profitable options.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

No thanks. I like the neighborhood feel to the wards.

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You and anyone else that says about "foot traffic" are liars. I live in a very crowded world. One of the highest populated. My FC has a house in Goblet, I have a house in Shirogane and I'm in Mist often. There is no traffic at all. It's all a ghost town.

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Originally Posted by Silverbane

And you'll probably never make back the price of a housing plot by growing stuff there.

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LOL. This is so incredibly incorrect. The real gardeners know exactly what you need to grow in order to make millions of gil a week.

Neighborhoods have been pretty much DOA. Been saying that from day 1 of housing.
Wasted space to use neighborhood design IMO..

Please expand apartments into S,M. L sizes to equal homes, with quadruple current item limits of all home sizes and with NO demolition thievery from SE . Interior gardens and an "attached chocobo stable door as well"

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Originally Posted by Ransu

No thanks. I like the neighborhood feel to the wards.

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Found Yoshi-P's sock puppet account.

The only people I ever see in the wards are people looking for houses, people who lost their houses and are getting their money back, and people who just won houses. Everyone congregates in the capital cities, not the wards.

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Originally Posted by ijuakos_xqwzts

Everyone congregates in the capital cities, not the wards.

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You're not wrong at all. Personally, I would like to see apartments moved to the capital cities for exactly that reason. They don't need to be stuck out in the wards when they're already instanced. Use the space in the wards to put something else in there, maybe another large plot since that seems to be what most people are frothing at the mouth over, and let the rest of us have a nice space in the ever bustling cities.

For the apartments themselves... I've literally lost track of how many ideas and clever innovations people have had to make apartment living more desirable... purchasing upgrades for size, purchasing new floors, purchasing a balcony area and upgrading it so it holds a few outdoor items, just to name a few. I've even seen ideas about how to recreate that 'neighborhood feel' Yoshi-P is so hung up on, but I've never seen anything even acknowledging such ideas from the devs.

I know part of their reticence is due to the fact they would have to redesign apartments from the ground up to implement even half of those features we keep begging for, and they don't want to spend the time, effort, and money needed to do that. I think they might have to bite the bullet and do it anyway at some point though. There are ways, many ways, they could make it work if they put their thinking caps on.

Balconies and other outside areas giving you fits because you can't resolve the conflict between having an instanced area plus a balcony? Why not simply make the view a generic one of the city's npcs moving around and no players? We won't mind, I promise.

Not sure how to handle size upgrades? I could point to SO MANY ideas on this, but probably one of the simpler ones would be to give everyone the equivalent of a penthouse space, but you unlock areas as you go. Want an upstairs? Pay the gil. Want an indoor garden? Pay the gil. Want access to the rooftop? Pay the gil. And so on and so forth. You could still decorate the areas you have unlocked as you see fit, and simply add the features as we go.

Not sure how to handle item limits? This one's harder since we've all been screaming for more limits for literally ages... but I'd say set everyone at a large's 400. That should cover most people. Particularly if the space isn't as big as an actual large. That would also, handily, make a nice incentive for people to want to move from private houses to the new apartments.

Not sure how big you want these things to be? Again, tricky, but I imagine that if you could ultimate upgrade to something about the size of a medium, or a little larger, not counting outdoor areas, most of us would be perfectly happy.

But what about the wards? Wards are a touchy subject. Some people like them, some people don't, and some don't care at all. Some think they should be FC only, some don't. FCs on larger servers cry about not being able to get a house of any size for their FC while people on medium or smaller servers are just staring at the vast fields of open small plots and laughing at the idea an FC would even deign to touch such an insignificant space. Some even laugh at the idea that their entire population could even fill the wards available. Personally, I say don't worry about it. The apartments are an option. The wards will figure themselves out in time.

I could go on, but I think I've made my point. It CAN work if done thoughtfully and with care. You've even hinted at exactly that for housing on the moon with the whole remodel of the residences. Or, as an alternative, you could break down and make the Island Sanctuaries capable of housing the way people have been hoping for since those were announced. Yes, it would be a pain in the backside to do, but at this point I think you would have more to gain than to lose. I would cheerfully move to an upgraded city apartment or my Island Sanctuary and not look back, and I expect a lot of other people would as well.

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Originally Posted by HeyMcFly

In the meantime:
FC rooms & Apartments also need to be priced evenly & expanded upon by increasing their size & adding rooms/ floors and introducing a roommate option as well as a garden if someone wants it
The new house Wards when they are eventually added, need to be made fully private wards

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There’s a reason why apts and fc rooms are not priced evenly: it is easy to lose and fc room. Some FCs kick people very easily if they don’t show up for a week or two (they don’t ever go on vacation?), the FC may end up not to your liking, it may be disbanded etc. I have no problem with my FC as I’ve been playing FF and another MMO with thr same people since years but it is a reality of guilds/FCs and people can be hesitant.

Now, that being said they should have two sizes, including one with a garden space (balcony, indoor garden). The “vision” of the devs is nice but only as long as they are able to and take the means to meet demand. It shouldn’t come down to pure rng as to who can own not a house or not.

The only thing they need to do but really don't want to, is spend money on it!

Or something like "spaghetti code" but...

Here's hoping they'll spend more money on 14 once 16 is done! ^^'

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

I get the impression that some people feel that it's the buildings and not the people who live/work in those buildings that create a neighborhood.

They feel how they feel, can't argue that even if you don't feel the same way.

It's still not a reason to justify a system that doesn't allow every player to get a house if they want one.

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To be honest, with instanced housing that feeling of the buildings doesn't necessarily have to disappear. Just have some prefab houses showing outside the instance entrance and once you enter it you see all the fancy decorations they've done to it. You could also add a menu similar to player search to choose/filter for which instance you want to go to.

Instant housing is only way to fix this problem. If don't see the housing problem fixed by 7.0 don't think me or my friends will stay with the game and move to another MMO that has instant housing. The lottery system to me is another big fail on their part.

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Originally Posted by FossilPunk

To be honest, with instanced housing that feeling of the buildings doesn't necessarily have to disappear. Just have some prefab houses showing outside the instance entrance and once you enter it you see all the fancy decorations they've done to it. You could also add a menu similar to player search to choose/filter for which instance you want to go to.

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I still love RIFT's instanced housing system (Dimensions). Almost every Dimension is a literal slice of the game world with the NPCs and some of the object decor removed. There's a huge Dimension that completely empty except for ground stretching into the distance for those who want to completely form their housing from scratch,

Want your housing to be in a city? Get a city themed Dimension. In a rural village? Get a village Dimension. Desert? Get a desert Dimension. Forest? Get a forest Dimension. Under water? Get the water Dimension. Want to start completely from scratch? Get Dimension: Anywhere which is a completely blank slate other than dirt ground stretching to the horizon.

It has a good search tool for finding Dimensions owned by other players so it's not like your housing will go unnoticed if you want other players to see it.

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Originally Posted by Eris4494

Instant housing is only way to fix this problem. If don't see the housing problem fixed by 7.0 don't think me or my friends will stay with the game and move to another MMO that has instant housing. The lottery system to me is another big fail on their part.

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You might want to think twice about randomly quitting just over housing.

There's a reason I'm here and not still playing RIFT. The rest of RIFT is rather mediocre. Not terrible, just not that good. Housing alone does not make for a good MMORPG experience, though certainly it adds greatly to the overall experience.

Think going to try out New World Online.