6 New wards Added to All housing districTs PER WORLD!

Wow that is a surprise. Coming in 6.3 1800 new plots per server (regular and subdivision). FC and Private designations to come later.

https://i.gyazo.com/f3dcf48e1f0e7cc1...81ee90d5d4.jpg

Edit: Don't think Materia needs any new wards/plots! :P

And 6.3 is in January 2023 for those wondering on the approximate date.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...1_19-08-46.png

My body is ready.

And by my body, I mean the shell FC I have standing by on an alt. I've learned my lesson from Empyreum.

6 new wards! That really is welcome news! :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Solarra

6 new wards! That really is welcome news! :)

---

I'm happy to see that this will be adding more houses than the release of Empyreum. But just remember that on established servers, this is still be far less availability than what we are seeing on Dynamis right now. Every personal house will have multiple bidders. Losing your bid will still be far more likely than winning. It's our best chance to score a personal plot since the launch of Empyreum, but it's far from guaranteed.

Based on what happened in Empyreum, FCs should have a few rounds of guaranteed housing. If you really want a house on an established server, give serious consideration to creating an FC for it. Level an alt if you cannot leave your FC on your main character. The projected release period for 6.3 is early January, so you will want to create an FC and have your bidding character(s) in it by early December at the latest.

edit: Just watch out for the FC house purchasing limits. I believe that if you already have a character that purchased an FC house, you must leave the FC before any of your other characters will be eligible to make a FC house purchase.

In before 4 FC wards, 2 personal wards when they launch it.

Glad they realized how bad housing supply is on established DCs and are doing something about it, even if I think it's the wrong path to keep heading down.

Yeah, the whole FC housing thing is far more far reaching than people think, or want to think, too.

Between access to workshop/submarines (which you don't get with a personal plot) and also general access to housing, it also actually has the effect of suffocating the growth and thriving of actual FC communities (unlike guilds in most other MMOs, where apart from placing the two largest size outdoor decorations in LOTRO, I'm not thinking of anything offhand that you have to have a guild house for, so they tend to develop far more naturally).

Instead of FCs getting to grow, people use their FC affiliation instead on a solo FC so they can gain access to said perks. (It doesn't help that every time FCs are given some form of preferential treatment - which is arguably on the other hand necessary in order to allow genuine fledgling FCs a chance at legitimacy, as few other than gil botters are particularly interested in a homeless FC - the value of this system-gaming is enhanced, as the shell FC often becomes the best chance on established worlds for a de facto personal home)

This then leads to a lot of people in splintered, separate FCs that largely (due to linkshells' limitations, especially cwls) have to then rely on social media to maintain a functional community (and as I've noted far too many times before, the pressures placed on community owners by social media platforms do not help FFXIV's situation in the slightest).

Shell FC and alts rejoice!

I'm likely not going to make more shells.

But I think I will try shuffling the Aether FC (real players) into a better spot. The mist small is nice, but we are growing to much now. There's close to 800,000,000 in the fc vault, so maybe time to set up making sure enough alts are in the FC on me and closest friends, then stack it all on a top class plot.

SE need to tighten the rules because I know alot of people will be making alts on those worlds to harvest additional FC's with for their own selfish reasons....

Because in short time people will complain again about to few houses, while some has 2 or above.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Themarvin

SE need to tighten the rules because I know alot of people will be making alts on those worlds to harvest additional FC's with for their own selfish reasons....

Because in short time people will complain again about to few houses, while some has 2 or above.

---

A lot will depend on how many of the new wards they choose to reserve for FCs. They should have a fair amount of data gathered from lottery sales about what the actual demand is for FC versus personal. While people are expecting a 50/50 split, could be that SE will reserve only 1 or 2 of the new wards in each district if they feel actual FC demand is mostly met for now.

If all wards were designated personal, the number being added would be enough to meet the unsatisfied personal demand we were seeing on most worlds back in June when the personal wards had finally filled up outside of the stray house made available. Those tracking bid counts at the time were coming up with numbers in the 1500-3000 range.

It's not going to remove demand for more medium and large houses but hopefully almost everyone who actually wants a house should be able to get a house of some type.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Themarvin

SE need to tighten the rules because I know alot of people will be making alts on those worlds to harvest additional FC's with for their own selfish reasons....

Because in short time people will complain again about to few houses, while some has 2 or above.

---

A lot of housing issues could easily be solved by making it one per account instead of per character, and even more so by requiring completion of Endwalker.

Shirogane in Dynamis is the most dead ward because stormblood gatekept a lot of alts out.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Themarvin

SE need to tighten the rules because I know alot of people will be making alts on those worlds to harvest additional FC's with for their own selfish reasons....

Because in short time people will complain again about to few houses, while some has 2 or above.

---

It is a shame, I moved to Dynamis to hopefully get a house but it looks like all the personals will be taken in the next lottery. When these new wards come out you get exactly 2 lotteries to get the small you want and then it's just all gone.
They either need a rule change to stop people using shell FCs and alts to farm up multiple houses, or just need to double the existing wards to make sure people can actually get one.

Are you on Maduin? We have many mediums and smalls still available.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Brygd

Are you on Maduin? We have many mediums and smalls still available.

---

No Hallicarnassus, and between all 4 areas the mediums and larges are all gone and about half the smalls are gone in a single round. I haven't missed a single round of bidding since lottery started on my original world and still haven't manged to win a small.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Oizen

A lot of housing issues could easily be solved by making it one per account instead of per character

---

I would be ok with that if all of my characters had full access to the use of the house, but I imagine that would be difficult for SE especially seeing how we even can't mail things to our own characters with their current tech.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Oizen

A lot of housing issues could easily be solved by making it one per account instead of per character, and even more so by requiring completion of Endwalker.

Shirogane in Dynamis is the most dead ward because stormblood gatekept a lot of alts out.

---

Because - on a new DC - everything is so interconnected you do need to be careful with making the gatekeeping too strong.

Most of all the new DC needs good queues to survive. Without good queues, then it will be forever worse than Materia is. People will head over to Aether to do their queues.

Making housing as easy to get as it is now means there is a healthy as possible population to draw from. People having housing gives them roots to ensure it's easier to keep them on the DC.

If you lock housing until completion of EW, then the population drops and shatters, and the queues get worse.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

No Hallicarnassus, and between all 4 areas the mediums and larges are all gone and about half the smalls are gone in a single round.

---

Are you really sure? I just jumped on Hali this second and did a genuine manual count just looking at 13-24 main and subdivision

in LB I count 35 mediums and one large
in Goblet I count 105 mediums and 9 larges
in Mist I count 45 mediums and 3 larges
in Empty I count 52 mediums with zero larges
In Shiro I count 14 mediums with zero larges

We have 251 mediums empty on Hali, 12 larges, and maybe 70% of smalls still vacant.

Shiro is the busiest, but there are a tonne of empty houses, especially smalls outside of shiro. If you really want one, same advice for years, get the worst and upgrade in the next round or in January. Don't hold out for a LB41 then throw up your hands saying "no haus left, I give up"

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Amenara

In before 4 FC wards, 2 personal wards when they launch it.

Glad they realized how bad housing supply is on established DCs and are doing something about it, even if I think it's the wrong path to keep heading down.

---

Well, there is likely more need for FC wards so wouldn't surprise anyone.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

It is a shame, I moved to Dynamis to hopefully get a house but it looks like all the personals will be taken in the next lottery. When these new wards come out you get exactly 2 lotteries to get the small you want and then it's just all gone.
They either need a rule change to stop people using shell FCs and alts to farm up multiple houses, or just need to double the existing wards to make sure people can actually get one.

---

Based on how it was on the new EU worlds, we're still having a ton of houses available. Especially in the FC wards.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shibi

Shiro is the busiest, but there are a tonne of empty houses, especially smalls outside of shiro. If you really want one, same advice for years, get the worst and upgrade in the next round or in January. Don't hold out for a LB41 then throw up your hands saying "no haus left, I give up"

---

Totally agree best to get a house if not a prime location if getting one has been an issue. Transfer is always an option in the next round and at worst if you lose you won't be homeless when you attempt a transfer to a better more competitive location.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sotaris

Well, there is likely more need for FC wards so wouldn't surprise anyone.

---

It wouldn't surprise some people but I imagine it would anger most people. I doubt there is a large demand for FC houses other than FCs trying to get larger plots and wouldn't be surprised if they did allocate that many wards that most of the smalls would be empty until enough single player FCs popped up or until SE opened the new wards to personals, kind of like last time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sotaris

Based on how it was on the new EU worlds, we're still having a ton of houses available. Especially in the FC wards.

---

FC wards does no good to me or a lot of people if you're not cheating the system with solo FCs. Personals is what people want.

On Seraph atm, easily the most crowded of the new US wards, Shirogane has 20 open plots, Lavender Beds 30 plots including 2 mediums and 1 large. Goblet still has about 60% of it's plots open, Mist around 35-40%, Empyreum about 15%. By comparison, Marilith and Maduin Goblet wards are about 80% empty atm. Still waiting for a certain faction to downsize it's domiciles (wonders if upcoming crafting tribal stuff might be contributing to that).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

FC wards does no good to me or a lot of people if you're not cheating the system with solo FCs. Personals is what people want.

---

Yeah well I'm looking at Hallicarnassus right now and housing is still plentiful. Sky isn't falling, you can still get a house even if it isn't the prime plot you tried for in round 1.

Hopefully they're all private.

https://i.imgur.com/SIIQxkn.png

Less than 4 hours after this plot went up. Cant wait to see how awful it gets

This is all so stupid. It's like watching a 200 car pile-up with no inclement weather. All the football players and the crowd dogpiling on top of the running back after he's hit the floor for like 10 years straight. That one video where the whole crowd throws chairs into the wrestling ring. So, so absurd you really would have no choice but to believe it's from some tone-deaf international company that doesn't take feedback from anywhere other than its home state.

For the love of the God, just make an custom-size instanced housing plot option.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

It is a shame, I moved to Dynamis to hopefully get a house but it looks like all the personals will be taken in the next lottery. When these new wards come out you get exactly 2 lotteries to get the small you want and then it's just all gone.
They either need a rule change to stop people using shell FCs and alts to farm up multiple houses, or just need to double the existing wards to make sure people can actually get one.

---

What exactly is the relationship between people making shell FCs and personals being taken up?

edit: I just looked at Halicarnassus and as others have mentioned there are tons of houses left. Unless you're going to try to compete for a premium plot in this round, you should be finalizing a house purchase after the end of this lotto entry period.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pablomaldito

What exactly is the relationship between people making shell FCs and personals being taken up?

edit: I just looked at Halicarnassus and as others have mentioned there are tons of houses left. Unless you're going to try to compete for a premium plot in this round, you should be finalizing a house purchase after the end of this lotto entry period.

---

There isn't. Not anymore. The issue people have is they clutch pearls at the idea of people creating small FCs to get housing. That somehow this is morally bankrupt. I don't blame people for doing so, in many instances it's actually made it easier for people to acquire housing and they tend to share it with friends and family. Somehow people conflate this with violating the ToS and RMT, which is hilariously untrue on both fronts.

I don't care if someone gets a house via creating a small FC or lands themselves a personal plot. I celebrate them finally getting the thing they've been wanting.

Editting this to add: I find it clever and resourceful that people use 'shell' FCs to buy housing. Gives them access to the workshop, and they can even have all their alts in the FC create rooms. In a way personal housing can't.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nepentha

There isn't. Not anymore. The issue people have is they clutch pearls at the idea of people creating small FCs to get housing. That somehow this is morally bankrupt. I don't blame people for doing so, in many instances it's actually made it easier for people to acquire housing and they tend to share it with friends and family. Somehow people conflate this with violating the ToS and RMT, which is hilariously untrue on both fronts.

I don't care if someone gets a house via creating a small FC or lands themselves a personal plot. I celebrate them finally getting the thing they've been wanting.

Editting this to add: I find it clever and resourceful that people use 'shell' FCs to buy housing. Gives them access to the workshop, and they can even have all their alts in the FC create rooms. In a way personal housing can't.

---

I know quite a few house enthusiasts that make shell FC's to buy up houses on other servers like crazy, and worst part they can't even see for themself as for what they do is bad morale and just not ok in anyway.

Owner of 1 FC per Account Owner of 1 House per account, and then removal of grandfathering and shell FC's based over what is on accounts, and if some of these FC's is heavy inhabited they can just find another leader of in those FC's and still be member with SIC rights.

I know there is a few here that may say it is ok to have like 2 personal houses or the likes as well, which is still wrong.

There would be nothing bad in SE enforcing the TOS as it is, if it end with a couple of people quitting over it then they are not playing the game for Final Fantasy XIV anyway but for a housing simulator, the SIM's and various other apps/programs is better suited for that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Themarvin

There would be nothing bad in SE enforcing the TOS as it is, if it end with a couple of people quitting over it then they are not playing the game for Final Fantasy XIV anyway but for a housing simulator, the SIM's and various other apps/programs is better suited for that.

---

To the best of our knowledge, SE is enforcing the ToS. There are only 2 housing situations addressed by the ToS: any use of RMT for housing sales, and purchasing a house with the intent to resell (whether for real money or gil).

That's it.

Ownership of multiple houses isn't against the ToS. It's not even against the limitations listing in the housing guide. Personal house restrictions are per world. FC house restrictions are based around the character who purchased the FC house for the FC. Once that character is no longer in that FC, the player is free to purchase another FC house with that character or any other characters they have on that world.

It's not enforcement that's the issue. It's the rules themselves. Multiple house ownership might go against the intent of the rules but they do not violate the letter of those rules and it is the letter of the rules that is subject to enforcement.

If you want change, SE needs to rewrite the rules.

Color me surprised.

But. What does this bode for the auto demolition system? While I'm sure demand may have gone up in the last year or so (with or without shells..), it feels... odd, to just randomly throw more plots at the issue without really knowing how many could've been vacated by now. I mean.. maybe they themselves could know how many plots ought to have been demolished and recognized they need more wards regardless..

Still, nice, but, would additionally be nice if auto demo were reinstated as well, especially with the conflict that instigated it seeming to wind down. Maybe still a little early yet, but.. waiting for things to get back to some sense of "normal" could take years.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Themarvin

I know quite a few house enthusiasts that make shell FC's to buy up houses on other servers like crazy, and worst part they can't even see for themself as for what they do is bad morale and just not ok in anyway.

Owner of 1 FC per Account Owner of 1 House per account, and then removal of grandfathering and shell FC's based over what is on accounts, and if some of these FC's is heavy inhabited they can just find another leader of in those FC's and still be member with SIC rights.

I know there is a few here that may say it is ok to have like 2 personal houses or the likes as well, which is still wrong.

There would be nothing bad in SE enforcing the TOS as it is, if it end with a couple of people quitting over it then they are not playing the game for Final Fantasy XIV anyway but for a housing simulator, the SIM's and various other apps/programs is better suited for that.

---

If only the world worked in the black and white manner you perceive.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Themarvin

I know there is a few here that may say it is ok to have like 2 personal houses or the likes as well, which is still wrong.

---

Ah Marvin, more than a few, as you are about the only person on the one house per account speil. The vast majority of players (and the rules themselves) are clearly fine with one house per world, and that's far more realistic when we do play on multiple worlds.

This just tells me that they still haven't learned their lesson with housing. They just continue to feed the Director's ego and stack the everlasting failure of housing in this game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Greyhawk

This just tells me that they still haven't learned their lesson with housing. They just continue to feed the Director's ego and stack the everlasting failure of housing in this game.

---

Thats been housing since its released, the fundamental problem with it is that it can only ever grow linearly with the wards they physically add.
The system flat out isn't designed to scale with the player base, so anything they do involving throwing more wards is just going to be a temporary bandaid at most.

They need to focus on scalable solutions, like having apartments that go up to the size of a large with an outdoor area/patio for furniture, or even having individual houses in their own unique instances, say on some sort of island that is also a sancutary of sorts.

Ah maybe I can get the beach front cottage I couldn't get with the last lot of houses ^^ that'd be nice!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nepentha

There isn't. Not anymore. The issue people have is they clutch pearls at the idea of people creating small FCs to get housing. That somehow this is morally bankrupt.

---

For a long time, the only way to really reliably secure a house at all was to obtain a FC house from an existing owner, via FC leadership transference, and almost always this transference would have to be obtained through less than kosher means.

Quote:

---

I don't care if someone gets a house via creating a small FC or lands themselves a personal plot. I celebrate them finally getting the thing they've been wanting.

---

It is possible to be happy for people finally getting the plot they want while at the same time noting that this has undeniable negative effects on the game community, however:

Quote:

---

Editting this to add: I find it clever and resourceful that people use 'shell' FCs to buy housing. Gives them access to the workshop, and they can even have all their alts in the FC create rooms. In a way personal housing can't.

---

The ultimate problem with this being less "people make small FCs to get houses" though - it's more "because they make small FCs to get houses, that takes up their FC membership 'slot'" and the implications thereof for larger FCs - who thus tend to spall off at the seams like a heavy nucleus throwing off Alpha particles.

The result is that as a side effect of this whole housing to-do, FFXIV has grave difficulty in maintaining larger IGGs - especially more casual IGGs - in the way that is virtually de rigeur in almost every other MMO. In WoW, many casual guilds routinely have several hundred members and a thriving social scene within the guild. Last time I played SWTOR, we had to routinely prune the guild roster of inactive players, because we easily brushed up against the membership cap. FFXIV? You're usually lucky if a FC maintains as many as even ten long term members.

Cliquism, already a notable issue in XIV, is enhanced as well, because of the system encouraging small groups to spall off rather than mingle together in a larger FC.

The fact that everyone's in separate FCs also encourages people to base their communities in social media rather than in game, too. This has the double effect of big SM and its policies placing heavy pressure on the development of those communities, and of players tending to drift away more readily than otherwise from XIV, since they're no longer a FFXIV community, they're a Discord or Facebook community that plays XIV sometimes (which has its benefits, but also its problems - in particular, it aggravates the already significant problems with content lulls and those who join/return during them often struggling to pop queues).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Amarande

Cliquism, already a notable issue in XIV, is enhanced as well, because of the system encouraging small groups to spall off rather than mingle together in a larger FC.

The fact that everyone's in separate FCs also encourages people to base their communities in social media rather than in game, too. This has the double effect of big SM and its policies placing heavy pressure on the development of those communities, and of players tending to drift away more readily than otherwise from XIV, since they're no longer a FFXIV community, they're a Discord or Facebook community that plays XIV sometimes (which has its benefits, but also its problems - in particular, it aggravates the already significant problems with content lulls and those who join/return during them often struggling to pop queues).

---

That's not a problem created by game design. That's normal social interaction and it's that normal interaction that has influenced game design over time.

People don't tend to enjoy constantly being in large groups. They prefer to be in smaller groups with like-minded individuals who have similar interests. They like to truly get to know the others they play with instead of being near anonymous names lost in a sea of other near anonymous names. Occasionally they will join larger groups for special events but otherwise stay within their clique. Sometimes someone new will appear who fits in with the group and will be invited into it.

Game developers have learned that you can't try too hard to force players outside of their comfort zone and so they make changes to better accommodate the patterns players actually follow.

Take a close look at your own social circles. How well do you really know the people in them? Do you spend most of your time interacting with those you really don't know anything about, or are you spending your time with those you know better?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Amarande

Snip.

---

Disagree. Community is more than belonging to a large FC. I find big FCs to be draining. I'm an introvert. So I'm in a small FC with a handful of people. But I belong to a larger community of roleplayers. Map groups. Raiders. Marketboard crafters and gatherers. Housing enthusiasts. Sure we may gather on Discord in our various groups, but we gather in game. My venue is being used by the fish group for an up and coming festival. I have an alt over on Dynamis to help fund a whole bunch of people trying to put together a little RP area collectively. I have a map group that I join every Sunday for the afternoon. These are my people. We're all on different servers, belong to different FCs, but we gather together in game to have fun together frequently. So long as FFXIV continues to provide content we all want to participate in together, we'll be logging in.

The days of large FCs are waning. There are so many ways to form community with other people now that it's almost archaic. You may call it cliquish. I call it setting behavior boundaries in a certain social group. And there are /many/ out there, enough that if one group isn't your cuppa, you can find one that is.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nepentha

If only the world worked in the black and white manner you perceive.

---

It should in this instance, due to a limited ressource, and it would be the right thing to do, those affected should even be able to understand such, after all this is a videogame, and if housing mean everything, then you clearly are playing the wrong game for it entirely.