Devs Please Revisit Apartments

I believe the apartments are due for a revisit from the dev team. Although housing is incredible, I believe apartments can be very comparable to housing. Currently, apartments are only missing a few things that could be remedied very quick with a few adjustments.

Here are my suggestions, please add more below!

1. Add an instanced "outdoor" porch:
This to me is possibly the biggest feature that could help players feel they're not missing out on not owning a home, but also not taking away from those that do. A small porch / outdoor area where people can decorate with outdoor furnishing would add more value to the seasonal events and foster good will with players. It wouldn't be as big as the small house yard, but it would at least give players an option.

2. Increase the floorspace (not the floors):
Currently the floorsize of an apartment is not terrible, but could be increased. I could be wrong, but it seems smaller than the basement of small houses. I think it should be increased to the size of the basement of small houses. This would be a great quality of life change for apartments and still preserve the special feeling of small/med/large houses of having mult floors.

3. Increase the item space:
Personally, all houses should have an increase item size of at least 50-100. Again, this would allow players more options and higher value all the furnishings added to the game.

4. Provide an option to upgrade apartments to multiple floors in the future:
This is a shot in the dark, but maybe the apartments could be provided with upgrade feature to increase the floors to a small/med/large (penthouse!). Although the outdoor space would stay the same or increase only slightly (still keeping value to the houses), this would provide so many players with the fun of having a home without the disappointment of the very limited current housing system!

Apartments are such an incredible feature in this game. They provide a lot more to the general health of FFXIV than I think many people may know. Apartments are a great way to keep the economy healthy, since they further player investment even with those that have houses. Apartments also allow players to enjoy all of the housing districts without taking houses away from other players. Apartments also provide a horizontal progression for players outside of the gear chase, and increases the lifespan of many players' subscription. All of these points are great for SE's business! Please consider these suggestions and revisiting apartments dev team!

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Originally Posted by LittleArrow

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I'll preface by saying that a lot of what I will say is based on my experience playing mostly large-bodied races.
1 - Interesting addition, especially if we can have a bit of a vista. But if not, I kind of get why they'd rather not deal with it, since it can get in the way of server space?
2 - I agree on the increase of space, because a lot of furnitures are huge and what you can do with a house varies A LOT between Lalafell, Hyur and Roegadyn-sized characters. The floors only really help with further customization because of glitching, which is obviously heavily limited in an apartment, but the reasons for it are obvious.
3 - Agreed as well, especially on Large houses where the space is too big for just 300 items if you're not planning on using the large furniture
4 - It's definitely an interesting proposition, though I don't know how much this would strain the servers. However, if added, it can alleviate the issue with furniture and character size as mentioned in #2.
Because it's so different how much workspace you'd have on a house built by a Lalafell, a Hyur or a Roegadyn. Not just in terms of what you can add, but also in terms of what will then be used up. Especially if your house happens to be an FC house with other people of similar size. Or just overall being an FC furnished by standard-bodied\short-bodied races and then see a Hrothgar or a Roegadyn awkwardly make use of what you've built.

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Originally Posted by LittleArrow

I believe the apartments are due for a revisit from the dev team. Although housing is incredible, I believe apartments can be very comparable to housing. Currently, apartments are only missing a few things that could be remedied very quick with a few adjustments.

Here are my suggestions, please add more below!

1. Add an "outdoor" porch:
This to me is possibly the biggest feature that could help players feel they're not missing out on not owning a home, but also not taking away from those that do. A small porch / outdoor area where people can decorate with outdoor furnishing would add more value to the seasonal events and foster good will with players. It wouldn't be as big as the small house yard, but it would at least give players an option.

2. Increase the floorspace (not the floors):
Currently the floorsize of an apartment is not terrible, but could be increased. I could be wrong, but it seems smaller than the basement of small houses. I think it should be increased to the size of the basement of small houses. This would be a great quality of life change for apartments and still preserve the special feeling of small/med/large houses of having mult floors.

3. Increase the item space:
Personally, all houses should have an increase item size of at least 50-100. Again, this would allow players more options and higher value all the furnishings added to the game.

4. Provide an option to upgrade apartments to multiple floors in the future:
This is a shot in the dark, but maybe the apartments could be provided with upgrade feature to increase the floors to a small/med/large (penthouse!). Although the outdoor space would stay the same or increase only slightly (still keeping value to the houses), this would provide so many players with the fun of having a home without the disappointment of the very limited current housing system!

Apartments are such an incredible feature in this game. They provide a lot more to the general health of FFXIV than I think many people may know. Apartments are a great way to keep the economy healthy, since they further player investment even with those that have houses. Apartments also allow players to enjoy all of the housing districts without taking houses away from other players. Apartments also provide a horizontal progression for players outside of the gear chase, and increases the lifespan of many players' subscription. All of these points are great for SE's business! Please consider these suggestions and revisiting apartments dev team!

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Would've much preferred all of these suggestions over the entirety of the resources wasted on Island Sanctuary.

I like these ideas, but they'd probably increase the cost on apartments...

So lets tweak this.

What if all those things were options that could be bought. Double the cost to double the size, once you purchase it for the base cost.

Add in another 500k for the backyard door.

Another 500k to double storage, inside or outside.

Once you hit a total of 5 million spent, it should basically be a small house worth.

For the next set of upgrades, make them 5 million each, so at 25 million you've got a medium house worth in your apartment, spent and recieved.

And of course, push it to 50 million, 100 million, 500 million.

As long as people have to pass through a DOOR to reach the new space, instancing can happen properly, people can be split and shifted as needed.

In the end you'll end up with a space equal to a large, with less server demand then an actual large due to the limited amount of it that will be loaded at once.

Door into a stairwell, climb the stairwell and go out a door to the floor you want to be in. Only ever one floor loaded per apartment per person.

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Originally Posted by LittleArrow

I believe the apartments are due for a revisit from the dev team. Although housing is incredible, I believe apartments can be very comparable to housing. Currently, apartments are only missing a few things that could be remedied very quick with a few adjustments.

Here are my suggestions, please add more below!

1. Add an "outdoor" porch:
This to me is possibly the biggest feature that could help players feel they're not missing out on not owning a home, but also not taking away from those that do. A small porch / outdoor area where people can decorate with outdoor furnishing would add more value to the seasonal events and foster good will with players. It wouldn't be as big as the small house yard, but it would at least give players an option.

2. Increase the floorspace (not the floors):
Currently the floorsize of an apartment is not terrible, but could be increased. I could be wrong, but it seems smaller than the basement of small houses. I think it should be increased to the size of the basement of small houses. This would be a great quality of life change for apartments and still preserve the special feeling of small/med/large houses of having mult floors.

3. Increase the item space:
Personally, all houses should have an increase item size of at least 50-100. Again, this would allow players more options and higher value all the furnishings added to the game.

4. Provide an option to upgrade apartments to multiple floors in the future:
This is a shot in the dark, but maybe the apartments could be provided with upgrade feature to increase the floors to a small/med/large (penthouse!). Although the outdoor space would stay the same or increase only slightly (still keeping value to the houses), this would provide so many players with the fun of having a home without the disappointment of the very limited current housing system!

Apartments are such an incredible feature in this game. They provide a lot more to the general health of FFXIV than I think many people may know. Apartments are a great way to keep the economy healthy, since they further player investment even with those that have houses. Apartments also allow players to enjoy all of the housing districts without taking houses away from other players. Apartments also provide a horizontal progression for players outside of the gear chase, and increases the lifespan of many players' subscription. All of these points are great for SE's business! Please consider these suggestions and revisiting apartments dev team!

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So, just more housing/wards, am I correct?

I'd rather improve upon the system on a fundamental level while keeping resources in check.

1. Instead of an outdoor porch, change the tag of "outdoor furnishing" to "indoor/outdoor furnishing". This will allow for better management of inventory, increase decoration combinations indoors, and allow gardening for those that couldn't afford a plot.

2. Add new layout presets that can be purchased for half the cost as if you had bought an equivalent plot. For example, you could buy the interior of a small (1.5m), medium (10m), large (25m) and they would naturally come with the storage increase already built in. If you relocate to another apartment, you keep the upgrades you bought. Additional layouts can be bought for the same price, and you keep them unlocked if you decide to change the interior.

3. Apartments are the base size of an FC room. With new layouts, you can make presets beyond what it already in the game, like having a small with stairs leading upwards instead of downwards, making the room twice the size as a square or twice as long as a rectangle without the stairs, keeping the combined size the same as a small. You can do similar layouts for the medium and large.

4. These changes can also be applied to the existing plots, further enhancing ward usage, which would reduce the need to swap locations unless you prefer a closer marketboard, a different outside view, or just a bigger yard.

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Originally Posted by ICountFrom0

I like these ideas, but they'd probably increase the cost on apartments...

So lets tweak this.

What if all those things were options that could be bought. Double the cost to double the size, once you purchase it for the base cost.

Add in another 500k for the backyard door.

Another 500k to double storage, inside or outside.

Once you hit a total of 5 million spent, it should basically be a small house worth.

For the next set of upgrades, make them 5 million each, so at 25 million you've got a medium house worth in your apartment, spent and recieved.

And of course, push it to 50 million, 100 million, 500 million.

As long as people have to pass through a DOOR to reach the new space, instancing can happen properly, people can be split and shifted as needed.

In the end you'll end up with a space equal to a large, with less server demand then an actual large due to the limited amount of it that will be loaded at once.

Door into a stairwell, climb the stairwell and go out a door to the floor you want to be in. Only ever one floor loaded per apartment per person.

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I completely agree with everything you stated! I'd love the idea of working towards upgrades. It'd be so fun (and kind of frustrating lol) to have to save and spend, but it would make it that much more rewarding! Great ideas!

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Originally Posted by Kemeko

I'd rather improve upon the system on a fundamental level while keeping resources in check.

1. Instead of an outdoor porch, change the tag of "outdoor furnishing" to "indoor/outdoor furnishing". This will allow for better management of inventory, increase decoration combinations indoors, and allow gardening for those that couldn't afford a plot.

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The ONLY reason why I don't think this would be viable is maybe lumping all the furnishings together would hurt the servers more? I could be completely wrong, but I figure we have so many categories for not only organization, but also server space. That would increase the amount of furnishings by a lot, and although the item space is limited, the amount / size / detail each item has would be change drastically by putting them together. It's a really interesting idea though, thank you for sharing :)

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

Would've much preferred all of these suggestions over the entirety of the resources wasted on Island Sanctuary.

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Meanwhile, all of the people who enjoy IS and have no interest in apartments are glad they didn't "waste" all of those resources on apartments. Seriously, dude. Grow up. Just because you don't like something (or anything) doesn't mean it's a waste.

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Originally Posted by LittleArrow

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I agree for the most part. I just don't think that the "special feeling of owning x house" is something really worth preserving. It's a bit of a content island where players are really only meant to trade something like a furnishing, so owning a house itself isn't really something that's meant to be valuable, since you aren't supposed to trade it to other people, and at this point you don't really get it through anything like persistence, like clearing an Ultimate or farming a mount. You're really only meant to pay gil for the experience.

Which kinda ties into point 4: I think they should really just do from the start. To be totally honest, it'd be really low effort but if they just made it so you could pick the size of your interior and made it identical to the size of a house of your choosing and a gil fee, I'd be fine with that at this point. I hadn't really considered the economy part you mentioned. It actually really is a shame that it's so limited because creating furniture could be way more lucrative and fun thing for crafters to do rather than solely focusing on making raid gear for gil. That's just another thing that'd be great about everyone being able to have fun decorating something they actually like.

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Originally Posted by Deveryn

If anyone needs to face facts, it's players who think there's an easy fix to this. We're stuck. Deal with it.

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Based on trial and error I still think we can at least safely say we're past the part where continuing the course is viable. Whether they decide to do the right thing going forward or ignore the feedback is up to them; I just think they should be honest about their intentions, because they definitely can fix it whether they say it's easy or not.

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Originally Posted by Corvus_V

Based on trial and error I still think we can at least safely say we're past the part where continuing the course is viable. Whether they decide to do the right thing going forward or ignore the feedback is up to them; I just think they should be honest about their intentions, because they definitely can fix it whether they say it's easy or not.

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They've alleviated some of the desire with IS, but the fixes people want are not something they can provide.

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Originally Posted by LittleArrow

I believe the apartments are due for a revisit from the dev team. Although housing is incredible, I believe apartments can be very comparable to housing. Currently, apartments are only missing a few things that could be remedied very quick with a few adjustments.

Here are my suggestions, please add more below!

1. Add an "outdoor" porch:
This to me is possibly the biggest feature that could help players feel they're not missing out on not owning a home, but also not taking away from those that do. A small porch / outdoor area where people can decorate with outdoor furnishing would add more value to the seasonal events and foster good will with players. It wouldn't be as big as the small house yard, but it would at least give players an option.

4. Provide an option to upgrade apartments to multiple floors in the future:
This is a shot in the dark, but maybe the apartments could be provided with upgrade feature to increase the floors to a small/med/large (penthouse!). Although the outdoor space would stay the same or increase only slightly (still keeping value to the houses), this would provide so many players with the fun of having a home without the disappointment of the very limited current housing system!

Apartments are such an incredible feature in this game. They provide a lot more to the general health of FFXIV than I think many people may know. Apartments are a great way to keep the economy healthy, since they further player investment even with those that have houses. Apartments also allow players to enjoy all of the housing districts without taking houses away from other players. Apartments also provide a horizontal progression for players outside of the gear chase, and increases the lifespan of many players' subscription. All of these points are great for SE's business! Please consider these suggestions and revisiting apartments dev team!

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1)
I support this, it would make Apartments at least a LITTLE more Attractive, so you can have your own garden. It wouldnt be big, but its something.

4)
Hmm, while Id love this as well, considering the Apartments building is a Tower, it kinda wouldnt make sense....then again neither would an outdoor porch....But I feel like this is shooting to high at the moon.

Apartments could really use and upgrade. Its near impossible to get housing, so apartments are a Great Compromise...but at the same time limiting. Lift some limits, and I feel everyone would be happier.

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Originally Posted by LittleArrow

I believe the apartments are due for a revisit from the dev team. Although housing is incredible, I believe apartments can be very comparable to housing. Currently, apartments are only missing a few things that could be remedied very quick with a few adjustments.

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I disagree with your suggestions...but I agree with your premise. Apartments COULD be the solution to housing (that was their entire point originally), they just need some nudges.

Personally, we need indoor hydroponic planters. Say it's Sharlyan tech and give it a Sharl theme and bam! Done and it fits in-universe. If Sharlyan basically has doctors with laser scalpels due to the confluence of magic, aetherology, and churgeony, then it's likely they've figured out indoor planters. Especially since Labyrintos is basically one giant indoor planter!

1: Even existing houses don't have "outdoor" space since that requires a larger instance, skybox, etc. Note when you're in a house you can never see the outside. The closest to that we've come is our Crystarium inn room/apartment. (Also, Crystarium housing when? I'd love that! I'd love even just an apartment there that I could customize with that open window view.)

2: This creates problems with the database. They'd have to introduce them as new Apartments, and that might cause problems migrating people over. They could take all existing apartments and dump their inventory/set out stuff into storage, but then people would have to redecorate it all, even people that don't mind the size, and there would probably be some issues porting it all.

3: This is probably also a server limitation, but if they stopped adding new wards, they could potentially use that space this way. Though it may be a different limiting system. I remember them saying they put the Dwarven Tribal quests in Lakeland because Kholusia was reaching the limit of items and NPCs that could be placed in a single zone, only to run up close to that limit when they put the Dwarves in Lakeland. So there may be something like that that's a more strict limit than we realize. So this would largely depend on that.

4: Runs a similar problem to 2 in the transition stuff and possibly with 3 in the server stuff. You might also have the issue that a larger room would look empty if they couldn't increase the item allowance.

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I do agree Apartments are a great idea and honestly one of the better ones they had to the housing crisis, they just need to leverage them a bit more.

My bigger thing is not being able to log/zone out and in Apartments or Houses. I'm sure there's a technical thing with that, but I can with my Inn room. /shrug

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Originally Posted by Renathras

I do agree Apartments are a great idea and honestly one of the better ones they had to the housing crisis, they just need to leverage them a bit more.

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Leverage them more than having them also exist in FC houses? I think folks overlook that extra capacity that exists in every one of those houses.

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My bigger thing is not being able to log/zone out and in Apartments or Houses. I'm sure there's a technical thing with that, but I can with my Inn room. /shrug

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It's easier to load up the simpler more static area than one so heavily customized with personal storage.

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Originally Posted by LittleArrow

1. Add an "outdoor" porch:
This to me is possibly the biggest feature that could help players feel they're not missing out on not owning a home, but also not taking away from those that do. A small porch / outdoor area where people can decorate with outdoor furnishing would add more value to the seasonal events and foster good will with players. It wouldn't be as big as the small house yard, but it would at least give players an option.

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What I've hypothesized before is a rooftop garden; each apartment could have a private rooftop garden, with space for one crop plot (for crossbreeding seeds) and to put down some outdoor decorations. You don't need to worry about trying to add a 'porch' to the apartment instance itself (and thus an inside/outside duality that the housing system as it stands is not designed for), but rather when you clicked the 'exit' door of an apartment, it would give you the option to leave the apartment (returning to the lobby) or go to the rooftop garden for that apartment.

It does run the risk that you increase housing server load slightly; hypothetically, someone could be in the apartment and a friend of theirs could be in the garden at the same time, costing two little 'small housing' instances rather than one. But it feels like a very small risk overall, resource/load-wise.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

My bigger thing is not being able to log/zone out and in Apartments or Houses. I'm sure there's a technical thing with that, but I can with my Inn room. /shrug

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You are correct on "I'm sure there's a technical thing with that". Namely, the inn room (or Grand Company squadron barracks) seems so far as I can tell to only exist on your client, not on the server; this is why no one can come into your inn room with you, or visit your barracks. It's also why there can be an infinite number of inn rooms or barracks in use without any issue; they don't, strictly speaking, exist from the standpoint of the server.

Housing interiors are dynamically instanced, and the 'door' acts as a queuing system. If you're the only person in the house, when you teleport out (or enter a duty queue, or log out), the house—as an instanced zone—ceases to exist, thus there's nowhere to return you to when you go back.

Worse, if you teleported into your house interior on teleporting, but you actually wanted to get to the yard, it would require spinning up an interior instance, loading all the customization data, loading you into the zone... only to have you click on the door and exit immediately to get to your yard. Conversely, the exterior is shared by everyone; that instance is almost certainly already there to drop you into, and if you did need the interior of the house, you can walk up to the door to go in.

They did kind of do a workaround for this for Island Sanctuary; if you watch carefully, upon leaving a duty and being dropped back into your Island Sanctuary, it actually loads you into Moraby Bay first, then basically seems to functionally "use the NPC" to get you back to your island (and restore your location in doing so). But that works because so far as I know you can only be returned to your own island sanctuary, not a friend's; it doesn't need to think about "you were in this spot in the house at this plot on this ward" like it would with housing and then (functionally) teleport you to the door and use the door and then move you where you were. Instead, it can just be a "I was on my Island Sanctuary, [yes/no]" flag.

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Originally Posted by Corvus_V

Warframe actually has the coolest fucking stuff ever. I'm gonna be totally honest, I don't think FFXIV will ever compare to it when it comes to what you can make in it with the decorations.

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I must reluctantly agree with this. It actually irritates me on some level how good Warframe's housing system is.

I am currently constructing an arboretum in my clan dojo. I used an Inspiration Hall, then built out a floor up higher, at a level even with the base of the windows (letting you look out and see the lovely space skybox). That 'upper floor' has been landscaped with grass and stone, and trees and so on. I've also built a cliff between two of the main windows, with a waterfall down into a pond. Some lovely little meditation areas, and one of the ceremonial bells (because, I mean, c'mon... bell). I then also built a steep cliff down towards the main entry door, and a winding stone pathway a lot like the one you ascend to talk to Teshin in the Conclave room of the relays.

And this is without getting into the fact that the dojo is a space station I literally am snapping together like Legos, putting down as many rooms as I want wherever I want, as long as they make (some) degree of spatial sense. (Somehow I get left to do the decorating/building in every game we play anyway, so, y'know... everyone else took a break to play Destiny 2, time for me to knock down things and renovate our dojo while they're gone!)

I have trouble thinking of many MMOs, period, that can equal that.

Hence why—as I said—I am sometimes annoyed that a looter shooter is one of the most impressive high-water marks for a well-designed housing system that I've seen, and an excellent example of how you can do really impressive instanced housing; when you no longer have to fit things in any sort of shared world—as with clan dojos—you can allow people to completely customize the floor plan.

But I really, really doubt that the FFXIV servers are architected in an appropriate manner to handle it. (Especially as, let's be honest, Warframe's dojos have their own problems, in terms of certain bits of server performance and the weird interactions they have with the party system.)

Doubled furniture caps across the board would make a lot of people really happy.

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Originally Posted by Jybril

I agree. Would love more done with apartments.
The best thing about them is I don't need to be forced to sub to still have it.

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A cynical part of me thinks this is why SE has gone out of their way to not address apartments in years. I've been watching their live letters for any sign of an apartment upgrade, but nothing. And recent event rewards have skewed towards outdoor furniture only, which apartments obviously cannot use. Case in point: the christmas event gave a holiday tree... that can only be used in a front yard, which apartments obviously lack. Bravo, brilliant job SE.

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

They did kind of do a workaround for this for Island Sanctuary; if you watch carefully, upon leaving a duty and being dropped back into your Island Sanctuary, it actually loads you into Moraby Bay first, then basically seems to functionally "use the NPC" to get you back to your island (and restore your location in doing so). But that works because so far as I know you can only be returned to your own island sanctuary, not a friend's; it doesn't need to think about "you were in this spot in the house at this plot on this ward" like it would with housing and then (functionally) teleport you to the door and use the door and then move you where you were. Instead, it can just be a "I was on my Island Sanctuary, [yes/no]" flag.

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You can see the double zone by having something that gives you a message every time you zone up, like trying to enter a full channel.

Thanks for all the suggestions! I really hope the SE dev team is reading this, bc there are some great ideas here (even the ones contradicting mine!).

I just wanted to clarify, when I said "outdoor porch," I meant a small instanced outdoor yard that you would have to zone into just like the houses. It would be like expanding the porch in shadowbringers with an instanced door you'd have to go out for. The outdoor area could be static scenery and the porch could be a wide rectangle area with grass (like half of the yard for the small house).

Also, I think someone posted it's not realistic for apartments to have multiple floors. This is absolutely a real life thing. There are MANY very expensive penthouses that are literally mansion like spaces at the top of high-rise apartment buildings in cities. It's crazy @.@;

I still believe just the porch alone would help alleviate the incredible disparity between those who have houses and don't with outdoor furnishing. There's a literal entire furnishing section that is completely useless for people. An instanced outdoor porch would completely fix that. Yes, there should be more housing wards, but there can be a great compromise that I think everyone would enjoy ^^

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Originally Posted by LittleArrow

Also, I think someone posted it's not realistic for apartments to have multiple floors. This is absolutely a real life thing. There are MANY very expensive penthouses that are literally mansion like spaces at the top of high-rise apartment buildings in cities. It's crazy @.@;

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In japan it's the POOR apartments that are multiple floors, just little bits of space crammed together.

Love all these ideas! Especially the balcony and multi-story apartments. I have an image in my head of an apartment about the bottom size of a small, with the back 3 “squares” being a half-height built-in loft with steps on the side, and of course, said loft acts as a floor you can place items on… so many ideas they could pull from to make apartments more interesting!

Yes please, I want this more than a new housing area personally. I think they could overhaul apartments and make them really nice. A balcony or rooftop for players to make a garden would be wonderful. My biggest complaint with apartments is the same as housing, the item limit is far too low. Being able to upgrade the floor space is a must, preferably without any permanent fixtures like pillars or walls to navigate around. If they give us y and z axis to set items, that would be amazing.