The solution is honestly not as complicated as some think it is

I keep seeing people argue about housing, and want it one way or another without thing about others and what they want...
We have to accept that we cant have everything we want, and some things have to be changed or sacrificed to get another.
Full on instanced housing is not going to happen, but this would be a decent compromise.

-Leave neighborhood housing the way it is right now.
-add medium and large apartments to the apartment housing*
-Limit house ownership to 1 house per FC/account per Data Center (one account can own a house as an FC leader, and a house as personal)**
-add a small 2x2 inside gardening housing item. (if that can even be done)
-add choices to the layout of the house, nothing crazy, just a "mirror" option (so small house with stairs on left side)
-Allow FCs to choose where to place the door for members rooms


*Note on apartments:
Small: same as it is now
Medium: same as a small house
Large: two floors equal to a large house (instead of a med house's three floors)


**Note on ownership changes:
When changes are made, send out emails to all effected accounts, that they must reply with what house they want to keep with location/server. All other houses will be demolished, released and owners will be refunded 80% of the value to the characters connected to them.

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add medium and large apartments to the apartment housing

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Absolutely, why not ? Consider it "instanced housing"

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Limit house ownership to 1 house per FC/account per Data Center (one account can own a house as an FC leader, and a house as personal)**

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No.

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add a small 2x2 inside gardening housing item. (if that can even be done)

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Good idea tbh, lets people use gardening to make onions or whatever for selling.

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add choices to the layout of the house, nothing crazy, just a "mirror" option (so small house with stairs on left side)

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Big agree

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Allow FCs to choose where to place the door for members rooms

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Why not ? Sounds good

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**Note on ownership changes:
When changes are made, send out emails to all effected accounts, that they must reply with what house they want to keep with location/server. All other houses will be demolished, released and owners will be refunded 80% of the value to the characters connected to them.

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Certainly not. If you think they will do that, you're dreaming. And tbh, they shouldnt.

I’d definitely like to see 3 sizes of apartments. And I like the indoor garden space idea and the indoor layout options too. But improving apartments is not going to solve the housing problem. An apartment is not a house, and while you may have some that would prefer a large-sized apartment to a house, you can already have an apartment and a house, plus an FC room. Many who want a house already have both of those, and just upsizing apartments isn’t going to diminish the demand for actual houses.

Instanced housing could happen, if there’s enough demand for it. And I think there is, in-game. We have to keep in mind, that the posters here are only a small part of the player base. Most of the arguments here against instanced housing, quite frankly, seem to come from people who are already lucky to have the house they want, who aren’t stuck in the 9-day lotto cycle every round with nothing to show for it. Simple fact: the wards alone are never going to be enough to house all the players on a server who want one. There will also never be enough mediums and larges for those that want those. An instanced system solves the problem of scarcity, and additionally has the possibility of choosing whatever plot you like.

And honestly, there’s no reason instanced couldn’t be added in addition to ward housing. Those that don’t want it won’t ever have to interact with it, so why so many feel the need to shoot it down every time it’s mentioned is beyond me. It solves the housing shortage while taking nothing away from existing ward owners. And it stops most of the other arguments on this forum if everyone can have access to the house they want.

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Originally Posted by Stormpeaks

Certainly not. If you think they will do that, you're dreaming. And tbh, they shouldnt.

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As much as it would suck, yes the limit needs to happen, its part of way we dont have enough houses to begin with. With how this game works, there is no need for one person to own multiple houses, even on different servers, hell there is not even a reason for multiple characters unless you are playing on another data center.

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Originally Posted by Khryseis_Astra

And honestly, there’s no reason instanced couldn’t be added in addition to ward housing. Those that don’t want it won’t ever have to interact with it, so why so many feel the need to shoot it down every time it’s mentioned is beyond me. It solves the housing shortage while taking nothing away from existing ward owners. And it stops most of the other arguments on this forum if everyone can have access to the house they want.

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That would be the apartments with the different sizes, there is no need for "an instanced house" when you have similar apartments, and yes it would lessen the demand for housing as many just want more internal room.

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An instanced system solves the problem of scarcity, and additionally has the possibility of choosing whatever plot you like.

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I think you forgot what game you are playing, you're playing FFXIV, I hope you understand that if instanced housing ever happens (which I doubt) it wont be a plot of your choice, have you seen island ? Everything is premade, and there's barely any choice, if instanced housing happens, it'll be a little bit like garrisons in WoW, with premade placement in the world, the house will be in a fixed spot, not "the plot you like", I can promise you that 100%

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They can do both, let people have their houses in the neighborhoods, and let people have S/M/L apartments.

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Absolutely, I think large apartments are a good idea actually.

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As much as it would suck, yes the limit needs to happen, its part of way we dont have enough houses to begin with. With how this game works, there is no need for one person to own multiple houses, even on different servers, hell there is not even a reason for multiple characters unless you are playing on another data center.

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Sure, but it cant apply to past purchases. If it applies to past purchases, they are opening up to a whole lot of drama. And no, getting some gil wont do anything, there are venue owners, or people with housing as a hobby, or people who do submarines, if you remove everything from these people but one, you are in for a ride because lets not forget those people also have multiple accounts, the loss wont be small.

Also, there is enough housing on the entirety of EU, and for NA, Dynamis is open with a billion plots having 0 bids, if people dont want to move, its on them, the housing system is fine. Instanced housing in the form of large apartments though is a good idea, hell I'd probably get one.

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Originally Posted by Khryseis_Astra

I’d definitely like to see 3 sizes of apartments. And I like the indoor garden space idea and the indoor layout options too. But improving apartments is not going to solve the housing problem. An apartment is not a house, and while you may have some that would prefer a large-sized apartment to a house, you can already have an apartment and a house, plus an FC room. Many who want a house already have both of those, and just upsizing apartments isn’t going to diminish the demand for actual houses.

Instanced housing could happen, if there’s enough demand for it. And I think there is, in-game. We have to keep in mind, that the posters here are only a small part of the player base. Most of the arguments here against instanced housing, quite frankly, seem to come from people who are already lucky to have the house they want, who aren’t stuck in the 9-day lotto cycle every round with nothing to show for it. Simple fact: the wards alone are never going to be enough to house all the players on a server who want one. There will also never be enough mediums and larges for those that want those. An instanced system solves the problem of scarcity, and additionally has the possibility of choosing whatever plot you like.

And honestly, there’s no reason instanced couldn’t be added in addition to ward housing. Those that don’t want it won’t ever have to interact with it, so why so many feel the need to shoot it down every time it’s mentioned is beyond me. It solves the housing shortage while taking nothing away from existing ward owners. And it stops most of the other arguments on this forum if everyone can have access to the house they want.

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Me again

Still no house, no horse in the race, and on Maduin so probably not gonna have issues when I try to buy one, anyway

I like the idea of wards. I liked it when I was last active a few years ago. The whole neighborhood thing where you get to know the people living around you, take in the sights of how everyone decorated their stuff, etc. But... As came up again and again in that other bigger thread(s), it's a failed experiment: there's no reason to hang out in the wards instead of a city aetheryte; because no one hangs out, there's no real reason to build up a community because nobody's around; no community building up means no one hangs out, etc. in a forever feedback loop.

(Being in Maduin/Dynamis, it's eerily similar to our DF/PF issues...)

Maybe it's more lively on the RP/more populated servers, idk, but I remember randomly visiting some ward spontaneously shortly after starting the game and... Nobody was there. And at the time, I forget which, but I WAS on a Crystal server, I remember that much. I guess I was hoping/expecting to see a lot of people hanging out or whatever, but again, there's no incentive to being in the wards (when you're not out questing that is) over the main cities.

(Cont because too much word vomit lol)

So at this point, we have to acknowledge that for probably 90%? (number pulled straight out of my ass lol) of the house-d population, based largely on just seeing the general flow of the debate/discussion, have a home either as a furnishing dumping ground, or something cool to show to their friends. At which point... Why do you need a ward for that? If someone visits a ward EXCLUSIVELY to come check out/hang out at your place, what does it matter what the neighbors have as decoration?

And yes, there\\\\'s SOME people who like, their FC/friend group happened to buy homes all next to each other and they coordinated... Cool, as has been said, keep the wards. But anyone in the larger pool of, at most, "showing off THEIR HOUSE to their friends", it doesn\\\\'t make a difference whether it\\\\'s an isolated instance, or shoved between gaudily-decorated meme homes.

The only real possible issue I can think of, which doesn\\\\'t seem to be brought up, is what form this would take. Like, is a depopulated (except for the "target" home) ward zone instanced in for the duration? Do you have a home in a black void of nothingness? Do you enter the instance by crossing the gate threshold?

I guess if I had to wonder aloud about the instancing, it\\\\'s not a criticism/rebuttal per se, but I\\\\'m just genuinely wondering what it even looks like in execution.

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Originally Posted by Kailea_Nagisa

That would be the apartments with the different sizes, there is no need for "an instanced house" when you have similar apartments, and yes it would lessen the demand for housing as many just want more internal room.

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And again, an apartment is not a house. Everyone can have both now, one is not a substitute for the other.

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Originally Posted by Stormpeaks

I think you forgot what game you are playing, you're playing FFXIV, I hope you understand that if instanced housing ever happens (which I doubt) it wont be a plot of your choice, have you seen island ? Everything is premade, and there's barely any choice, if instanced housing happens, it'll be a little bit like garrisons in WoW, with premade placement in the world, the house will be in a fixed spot, not "the plot you like", I can promise you that 100

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Which is why those of us who want instanced are making threads about what we want to see out of such a feature, in between posts trying to defend the concept altogether. Rather than just create a new system entirely from scratch, it makes sense to use the existing ward’s plots as the models for the instanced.

Literally all they would have to do is instance it and put the little shield walls up where the instanced plot ends and the background scenery ends. Everything else, inside and outside, could work the same; no need to create something entirely new. It’s also not going to take up much more room than the apartments do, since they’re all not loaded when in use, whereas wards are permanent-loaded. Hell if they only picked the top 3 plots of each size per neighborhood, I could be satisfied with that. I get that some plots would lend themselves to instancing more easily than others. Luckily the most popular plots tend to be the ones around the edges, so they’re easier to section off. It’s entirely doable and most other MMOs it’s a given. It’s not an unreasonable request, or expectation.

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Originally Posted by KatiaRelanah

So at this point, we have to acknowledge that for probably 90%? (number pulled straight out of my ass lol) of the house-d population, based largely on just seeing the general flow of the debate/discussion, have a home either as a furnishing dumping ground, or something cool to show to their friends. At which point... Why do you need a ward for that? If someone visits a ward EXCLUSIVELY to come check out/hang out at your place, what does it matter what the neighbors have as decoration?

And yes, there\\\\'s SOME people who like, their FC/friend group happened to buy homes all next to each other and they coordinated... Cool, as has been said, keep the wards. But anyone in the larger pool of, at most, "showing off THEIR HOUSE to their friends", it doesn\\\\'t make a difference whether it\\\\'s an isolated instance, or shoved between gaudily-decorated meme homes.

The only real possible issue I can think of, which doesn\\\\'t seem to be brought up, is what form this would take. Like, is a depopulated (except for the "target" home) ward zone instanced in for the duration? Do you have a home in a black void of nothingness? Do you enter the instance by crossing the gate threshold?

I guess if I had to wonder aloud about the instancing, it\\\\'s not a criticism/rebuttal per se, but I\\\\'m just genuinely wondering what it even looks like in execution.

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I gave a short answer in my other reply, but basically picture a plot that’s already in the game, exactly as is. Now pick an arbitrary point around the plot, after which, it’s just the background scenery. Any neighboring plots would just be generic scenery, if shown at all. There’s another topic I created where others have made ideas and suggestions as well.

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Originally Posted by Khryseis_Astra

I gave a short answer in my other reply, but basically picture a plot that’s already in the game, exactly as is. Now pick an arbitrary point around the plot, after which, it’s just the background scenery. Any neighboring plots would just be generic scenery, if shown at all. There’s another topic I created where others have made ideas and suggestions as well.

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Tbh that sounds absolutely depressing, just thinking of it, a customized house in the middle of an empty ward, or with only generic houses around but knowing there is no one there that owns the house, it's just an "item" in the ward

Also you are implying instanced housing would even imply the garden part, which it wouldnt, I think you are hoping for way too much from it, you expect a plot of your choice (which is 100% not happening), and also to have a garden ? No way.

I will repeat it, and I'm not the only one, instanced housing will never happen, larger apartments though ? Probably, and I'd be happy to see it

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Originally Posted by Stormpeaks

Tbh that sounds absolutely depressing, just thinking of it, a customized house in the middle of an empty ward, or with only generic houses around but knowing there is no one there that owns the house, it's just an "item" in the ward

Also you are implying instanced housing would even imply the garden part, which it wouldnt, I think you are hoping for way too much from it, you expect a plot of your choice (which is 100% not happening), and also to have a garden ? No way.

I will repeat it, and I'm not the only one, instanced housing will never happen, larger apartments though ? Probably, and I'd be happy to see it

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The whole ward wouldn’t be there, just the background scenery… I’m sure some would prefer that to some of the housing skins their neighbors use! lol In all seriousness though, I’m not about trying to sway your opinion. I get it. You’re happy with what you’ve got, so you don’t see a need for anything else. To each their own. Other people do see a need for other things, and it’s only natural for us to voice that to a company we’re paying a monthly fee to.

And yes, when I’m asking for instanced housing, I’m outlining my ideals, what I would want it to look like. I want all the things that ffxiv’s housing does well, put into an instanced system so that everyone can actually have access to that content.

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Originally Posted by Kailea_Nagisa

As much as it would suck, yes the limit needs to happen, its part of way we dont have enough houses to begin with. With how this game works, there is no need for one person to own multiple houses, even on different servers, hell there is not even a reason for multiple characters unless you are playing on another data center.

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There are reasons. The question becomes if those reasons are important enough for SE to allow other players to be blocked from also owning because a small percentage of players have multiple houses.

Keep in mind that taking away houses from players that currently own them does not make houses appear only where needed. Taking away multiple houses owned on Gilgamesh by a single player does not add those houses to Balmung or Mateus, where competition for a house appears to be the greatest. That will always be a problem because SE can't control what worlds players choose to play on, they can only control which worlds players cannot make new characters on or transfer to.

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Originally Posted by Kailea_Nagisa

That would be the apartments with the different sizes, there is no need for "an instanced house" when you have similar apartments, and yes it would lessen the demand for housing as many just want more internal room.

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There's no need for any housing, there is only player desire for it.

That doesn't mean that it shouldn't be part of the game. Many players wouldn't end up happy with a space that's interior only, which is part of why apartments don't solve anything except for those who are only looking for a place to store their indoor furnishings. .

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Originally Posted by KatiaRelanah

I guess if I had to wonder aloud about the instancing, it\\\\'s not a criticism/rebuttal per se, but I\\\\'m just genuinely wondering what it even looks like in execution.

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That would depend on SE.

If you want to see what is possible with execution, there are other MMORPGs with instanced housing that can offer examples. It doesn't mean SE would copy those systems in part or in full.

I would love to have RIFT Dimensions in FFXIV, sans the cash shop housing item loot boxes. There were still other ways to get housing items (vendors, creature drops, seasonal events, etc.) but some of the more popular items were only in lootboxes.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

There are reasons. The question becomes if those reasons are important enough for SE to allow other players to be blocked from also owning because a small percentage of players have multiple houses.

Keep in mind that taking away houses from players that currently own them does not make houses appear only where needed. Taking away multiple houses owned on Gilgamesh by a single player does not add those houses to Balmung or Mateus, where competition for a house appears to be the greatest. That will always be a problem because SE can't control what worlds players choose to play on, they can only control which worlds players cannot make new characters on or transfer to.


There's no need for any housing, there is only player desire for it.

That doesn't mean that it shouldn't be part of the game. Many players wouldn't end up happy with a space that's interior only, which is part of why apartments don't solve anything except for those who are only looking for a place to store their indoor furnishings. .


That would depend on SE.

If you want to see what is possible with execution, there are other MMORPGs with instanced housing that can offer examples. It doesn't mean SE would copy those systems in part or in full.

I would love to have RIFT Dimensions in FFXIV, sans the cash shop housing item loot boxes. There were still other ways to get housing items (vendors, creature drops, seasonal events, etc.) but some of the more popular items were only in lootboxes.

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Bolded is direct contradiction - if a player cannot make characters there nor transfer to there then SE does indeed control where you "play" if we are speaking about housing. I also do not see why the failed game RIFT keeps getting brought up if this was such a great idea. The reality is that implementing a instanced housing system would be very costly and likely exploited. I would rather they fix the housing system as is.

SE has all the information they need to implement a solution - I think the reality is that the instanced crowd really seems to not be acting in good faith as it seems to be a "all or nothing" approach.

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Originally Posted by Ayan_Calvesse

Bolded is direct contradiction - if a player cannot make characters there nor transfer to there then SE does indeed control where you "play" if we are speaking about housing. I also do not see why the failed game RIFT keeps getting brought up if this was such a great idea. The reality is that implementing a instanced housing system would be very costly and likely exploited. I would rather they fix the housing system as is.

SE has all the information they need to implement a solution - I think the reality is that the instanced crowd really seems to not be acting in good faith as it seems to be a "all or nothing" approach.

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Perhaps I should have used the word "won't" instead of "can't". They want to encourage players to bring friends and family to play the game with them. Even with world visit/data center travel, there's a bad impression created when the player has to tell the new player "but you can't play on the same world I'm on". So they only lock down worlds when the population gets to be too large compared to the rest. Balmung is our perennial example.

It's not like the game is only about housing or people choose to play it only because of housing. There is still a significant part of the player base that doesn't engage with housing at all, or at most only engages with their FC's housing. They're not going to make their decisions about Congested status because of housing.

I bring up RIFT because RIFT's problems had nothing to do with its housing. People can still play RIFT on official servers, even if I wouldn't recommend it because of the company that currently owns the game.

I could also bring up Wildstar, which truly is a failed game but again it had nothing with their instanced housing. That's the one thing about that game players were happy with.

ESO - not a failed game. Uses instanced housing close to what RIFT used.

Your problem is that you keep equating adding an improved instanced housing system to this game as a need to start a housing system from scratch. That is not necessary when we already have a functional housing system. Art assets for creating the instanced location already exist. Housing items already exist. Furnishing placement controls already exist. Ways for players to reach their housing already exists. All that would be needed is for SE is to put those things together so the instanced spaces are larger and more appealing to players.

Oh look - there's Island Sanctuary. It's an instanced space for every player who finishes 6.0 MSQ. Oh look, there's SE working on adding the ability for players to place outdoor furnishings in their Sanctuary. Once that's completed, it shouldn't be difficult to add a way to place indoor furnishings.

Hey, we're scheduled to get a second Island in 6.4 or 6.5. That hopefully means new art assets for our personal instances.

(Varshahn does tell us in optional dialog available after starting the post 6.0 MSQ that he wished he knew we had experience running an island because he's got islands also in need of management. He wants to talk to us later about that - hint of what our next island will be?

I'm not sure what you're referring to when you claim instanced housing could be exploited. Do you mean getting multiple houses? Well guess what - RIFT and ESO players are able to get multiple instanced housing locations per character. Instanced housing is not persistent like the wards are so it's not a problem. The player wants to go into one of their instanced housing locations - the instance opens and loads their housing assets. They want to move to another? The new one opens so they can go in then the current one closes when they leave.

Instanced housing is not an all or nothing approach. We've said multiple times that both ward housing and instanced housing can co-exist. It's the ward proponents that are not acting in good faith, trying to claim that it's "all or nothing". Instanced housing already exists in the wards via apartments. They already co-exist. What we're asking is that instanced housing be improved to go beyond a simple apartment. Will it take some effort on SE part? Yes. Will it be the problematic mess you claim? No. The game already has what's needed to make it happen. Ever notice those long paths in Goblet and Lavender Beds that lead absolutely nowhere? Examples of good places to add the entry points for instanced estates just as players walk to the apartment building door to select to enter their apartment or another player apartment.

How much experience have you actually had with instanced housing and in what games that makes you hate the idea so much?

Categorizing an entire group of people as 'not acting in good faith' when you're dealing with, like, the same two-three posters is usually the first sign that an argument has departed the realm of reasonable behavior. In any event, we've taken less than two pages to prove the topic title entirely wrong and demonstrate how no solution will ever be enough for everyone! We're getting faster at this.

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Originally Posted by Kailea_Nagisa

I keep seeing people argue about housing, and want it one way or another without thing about others and what they want...
We have to accept that we cant have everything we want, and some things have to be changed or sacrificed to get another.
Full on instanced housing is not going to happen, but this would be a decent compromise.

-Leave neighborhood housing the way it is right now.
-add medium and large apartments to the apartment housing*
-Limit house ownership to 1 house per FC/account per Data Center (one account can own a house as an FC leader, and a house as personal)**
-add a small 2x2 inside gardening housing item. (if that can even be done)
-add choices to the layout of the house, nothing crazy, just a "mirror" option (so small house with stairs on left side)
-Allow FCs to choose where to place the door for members rooms


*Note on apartments:
Small: same as it is now
Medium: same as a small house
Large: two floors equal to a large house (instead of a med house's three floors)


**Note on ownership changes:
When changes are made, send out emails to all effected accounts, that they must reply with what house they want to keep with location/server. All other houses will be demolished, released and owners will be refunded 80% of the value to the characters connected to them.

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These are all great ideas. I would also continue to add new residential districts, and of course add instanced housing to the Island Sanctuary. This would alleviate all problems. This way everyone has the chance to earn a house, but also get a house in a ward, as well as your ideas which would make apartments even more useful.

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Originally Posted by Kailea_Nagisa

With how this game works, there is no need for one person to own multiple houses, even on different servers, hell there is not even a reason for multiple characters unless you are playing on another data center.

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There is a need for both of those.
People who like decorating cannot do with just one house. They COULD, if instanced housing was a thing, because it would allow for saving and loading interior designs at-will. But as of now owning multiple houses and having multiple characters is the only option. Even if someone were to go for it with just a single house, they would run out of inventory space to store furnishings very quickly.

Now I'm not stating how I feel about this, or what my thoughs are, so please do not take my comment as me saying I'm in favor of people being able to own multiple houses, while others have 0. But it felt necessary to highlight how "The solution is honestly not as complicated as some think it is" is only true, if you decide to ignore or trample on other people to enforce stricter rules. Which IS a possibility - but none I would personally agree with or even recommend.


There is also many reasons for having multiple characters, but I won't go into those to stay on topic.

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Originally Posted by Xelanar

There is a need for both of those.
People who like decorating cannot do with just one house. They COULD, if instanced housing was a thing, because it would allow for saving and loading interior designs at-will. But as of now owning multiple houses and having multiple characters is the only option. Even if someone were to go for it with just a single house, they would run out of inventory space to store furnishings very quickly.

Now I'm not stating how I feel about this, or what my thoughs are, so please do not take my comment as me saying I'm in favor of people being able to own multiple houses, while others have 0. But it felt necessary to highlight how "The solution is honestly not as complicated as some think it is" is only true, if you decide to ignore or trample on other people to enforce stricter rules. Which IS a possibility - but none I would personally agree with or even recommend.


There is also many reasons for having multiple characters, but I won't go into those to stay on topic.

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That's basically it really, it actually isnt as easy as op makes it seem like.

Lets say player A has a few venues, just a random number, 3-4 on their account, 1 house for submarines, 1 personal fc.

You are going to force that player to choose between their venues, their submarines or their personal fc, I'm not sure how that's fair, as I mentioned it earlier in this thread, that rule is fine, but it cant happen for past plot purchases, only in the future, and even then, its a stupid rule in itself, removing houses from multiowners wont all of a sudden give houses to everyone, that's ridiculous, the houses that will free up will be taken in a round or two at most, and then what ? Who do we hunt next ? People that dont decorate their houses ? Should they lose their houses too ? Or maybe those that dont log in daily, maybe if they dont log in a 3 days time limit their house should auto demolish ? Or maybe even people that dont do content, maybe if they dont complete savage they'll lose their houses too ?

The point is that, this constant hunt to try and take stuff away from people because some people think they are owed a house, simply because they play the game, and that it's their "right" to have one, is getting ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by Stormpeaks

The point is that, this constant hunt to try and take stuff away from people because some people think they are owed a house, simply because they play the game, and that it's their "right" to have one, is getting ridiculous.

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You know from my other posts that I’m all about adding more features so everyone can participate in housing, and not part of any campaign to take anything away from anyone.

But this statement above… why wouldn’t paying subscribers expect to participate in a game feature? Maybe I’m not fully understanding your meaning here… but yes I think every player should have access to a house. That’s an entirely reasonable expectation. But do you get how it sounds to say “some people think they’re owed a house” referring to people who can’t get one, while defending those who have multiple of a scarce in-game resource?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still about trying to solve the actual problem: scarcity. Because you’re right, even if all the multi-owners were stripped down to 1 personal/1 FC tomorrow, it isn’t going to fix the overall problem. But statements like that are just fuel for the fire of all those who are understandably upset at not being able to get one house while someone else has like 5. A little empathy goes a long way.

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Originally Posted by Khryseis_Astra

You know from my other posts that I’m all about adding more features so everyone can participate in housing, and not part of any campaign to take anything away from anyone.

But this statement above… why wouldn’t paying subscribers expect to participate in a game feature? Maybe I’m not fully understanding your meaning here… but yes I think every player should have access to a house. That’s an entirely reasonable expectation. But do you get how it sounds to say “some people think they’re owed a house” referring to people who can’t get one, while defending those who have multiple of a scarce in-game resource?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still about trying to solve the actual problem: scarcity. Because you’re right, even if all the multi-owners were stripped down to 1 personal/1 FC tomorrow, it isn’t going to fix the overall problem. But statements like that are just fuel for the fire of all those who are understandably upset at not being able to get one house while someone else has like 5. A little empathy goes a long way.

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Entitlement is the worst thing there is, and the ones saying that they should remove all the houses from multiowners are entitled, they think they deserve it more than the multiowner that has worked on getting those houses for god knows how many months or years, but no, dont deserve it anymore than the multiowner.

I have said it a million times, on EU, there is more than enough housing, and as for NA, if you really want housing that bad, Dynamis exists, that's what I did on my NA character, I moved from Aether to Dynamis, and got a house in the first round in Shirogane.

They can expect a house, yes, but it doesnt say anywhere that they should expect a house on the biggest world in the game, obviously there will be scarcity as its limited.

If houses are in great supply eg. Materia, you can be a multi-owner as much as you want and I doubt anyone would care. It's only when supply is greatly diminished when it impacts the experience of non-owners trying to get a plot but is prevented from doing so due to the presence of multi-owners artificially restricting such supply such as on Balmung to give an example.

This is akin to corporations buying up residential housing in cities IRL where housing are already in scarce supply and actual people looking for a house aren't able to get one due to being priced out of the market. No doubt this is not a one to one comparison since this is a video game and not real life but you can somewhat draw the comparison.

The solution is to either greatly increase supply, revamp the entire system or clamp down on multi-owning practices which to be fair, is SE's responsibility. Meanwhile, the rest of us can put up suggestions in the official forums for SE to consider since this is our only outlet and griping elsewhere would be pointless as SE does not even look at other sources from what I've been told.

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Originally Posted by DeNada

If houses are in great supply eg. Materia, you can be a multi-owner as much as you want and I doubt anyone would care. It's only when supply is greatly diminished when it impacts the experience of non-owners trying to get a plot but is prevented from doing so due to the presence of multi-owners artificially restricting such supply such as on Balmung to give an example.

This is akin to corporations buying up residential housing in cities IRL where housing are already in scarce supply and actual people looking for a house aren't able to get one due to being priced out of the market. No doubt this is not a one to one comparison since this is a video game and not real life but you can somewhat draw the comparison.

The solution is to either greatly increase supply, revamp the entire system or clamp down on multi-owning practices which to be fair, is SE's responsibility. Meanwhile, the rest of us can put up suggestions in the official forums for SE to consider since this is our only outlet and griping elsewhere would be pointless as SE does not even look at other sources from what I've been told.

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I mean I could be wrong on this, feel free to correct me, but I have very high doubts that there are THAT many multiowners on Balmung, let alone with entire wards

None really worth speaking of, to my knowledge. It's also worth noting that the first point is a bit specious, too: there are multiple cases of wards being bought when houses were largely devalued and left unfilled on a given server and then the owners being buried in harassment when the server later inevitably starts to fill up. I'm not going to say it necessarily applies to every poster and every point, or even *most*, but there's definitely a streak of purely self-interested entitlement that crops up on this forum from time to time - you see it with the posts like 'remove all FC housing'.

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Originally Posted by Sindele

None really worth speaking of, to my knowledge. It's also worth noting that the first point is a bit specious, too: there are multiple cases of wards being bought when houses were largely devalued and left unfilled on a given server and then the owners being buried in harassment when the server later inevitably starts to fill up. I'm not going to say it necessarily applies to every poster and every point, or even *most*, but there's definitely a streak of purely self-interested entitlement that crops up on this forum from time to time - you see it with the posts like 'remove all FC housing'.

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Yep. I'm seeing in on Dynamis now. My friends and I are having a blast there, we like small servers. Hell might even make this my permanent home. But it's also deader than a doornail. Lots of housing around. (Especially in Goblet, which is where our house is.) Slowly there's some clear sub shack folks buying up housing for the workshop.

I can already hear the screaming about it in... oh, a year or two. When servers fill up finally, and housing goes back to being scarce and suddenly these people buying houses on a dead server will be getting lambasted for their greed and temerity.

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Originally Posted by Kailea_Nagisa

I keep seeing people argue about housing, and want it one way or another without thing about others and what they want...
We have to accept that we cant have everything we want, and some things have to be changed or sacrificed to get another.
Full on instanced housing is not going to happen, but this would be a decent compromise.

-Leave neighborhood housing the way it is right now.
-add medium and large apartments to the apartment housing*
-Limit house ownership to 1 house per FC/account per Data Center (one account can own a house as an FC leader, and a house as personal)**
-add a small 2x2 inside gardening housing item. (if that can even be done)
-add choices to the layout of the house, nothing crazy, just a "mirror" option (so small house with stairs on left side)
-Allow FCs to choose where to place the door for members rooms


*Note on apartments:
Small: same as it is now
Medium: same as a small house
Large: two floors equal to a large house (instead of a med house's three floors)


**Note on ownership changes:
When changes are made, send out emails to all effected accounts, that they must reply with what house they want to keep with location/server. All other houses will be demolished, released and owners will be refunded 80% of the value to the characters connected to them.

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It is on SE's end, most people do not understand the complex ways servers and more are run for this, it is too easy to say the solution is easy, because the work in need to be put behind, other than the basics of course... you can limit ownership as well as remove grandfathering and more to it, anything else like making bigger/smaller and so on and so forth is a complicated proces... and it is not like running a server in ones moms basement kind easy at all.

Maybe I'm out of the loop, but demolition services are still disabled. I last visited my house months (well over the 45 days rule) ago and it was still there when I returned to the game 2 weeks ago.

Is it still due to the Europe situation with Ukraine?

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

Maybe I'm out of the loop, but demolition services are still disabled. I last visited my house months (well over the 45 days rule) ago and it was still there when I returned to the game 2 weeks ago.

Is it still due to the Europe situation with Ukraine?

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Auto demo is still off on EU servers. It was turned off again because of the massive earthquake.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

Auto demo is still off on EU servers. It was turned off again because of the massive earthquake.

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I see. I assume NA will get turned off due to those hurricanes or whatever going on now.

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

I see. I assume NA will get turned off due to those hurricanes or whatever going on now.

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Do you mean the Mississippi tornadoes? I don't think it will have any effect on auto-demolition. From what I read there were under 30 fatalities as opposed to the 50000+ deaths, 100000 injured and 300000 destroyed apartments caused by the Turkey-Syria earthquake.

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Originally Posted by Themarvin

most people do not understand the complex ways servers and more are run for this, it is too easy to say the solution is easy, because the work in need to be put behind, other than the basics of course...

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Thats because if it was designed in a better way, this actualy would have been easy since its a matter of scaling things. Only when things scale up to a diffirent magnitude it becomes difficult as that requires a design change and further optimizations.

A house isnt that diffirent to a dungeon to a client, as both are just an instance. The random objects for the house arent too diffirent from the inventories of other players in regards to data that needs to be loaded, as both are still quite plain a list of items with some position values (or for items stack size and probably inventory slot). So on that part, the struggle shouldnt be too hard.

But because this was coded a long time ago without an intention of scaling it up further, it has a very poor base design that complicates everything. And this was already a result of a complete rework. But the issue here is, for a game that is this old, the base game actualy has very poor code as it never was made to scale. They most likely never expected this popularity and just wanted dirty fixes everywhere. Which now backfire as you cant easily change these things anymore.

But investing time in those things (which again is an easy statement to make) is the only way to truly fix these things. But that will go with some heavy bugs which i think they currently just dont want to happen. Bugs can turn people away. Housing is still secondary to the main game, and yet fixes here will guaranteed cause bugs in MSQ etc.

So this makes the only solution a very slow one, improving steps 1 by 1. Which sadly avoids the major reworks as this cannot be performed at such pace.

Managing a game and keeping it profitable isnt easy. There is a reason why devs like EA and activision ditch games quickly and make a new game, its simply easier to do, yet for an MMO simply not done.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

Do you mean the Mississippi tornadoes? I don't think it will have any effect on auto-demolition. From what I read there were under 30 fatalities as opposed to the 50000+ deaths, 100000 injured and 300000 destroyed apartments caused by the Turkey-Syria earthquake.

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I have no idea, it was all over the news so I assumed it was a big disaster, based on your reaction I'm guessing not.

You are right, the answer is simple; the answer is just dynamically adding wards when the desirable houses fill or when filling slows. SE is just stubborn. They won't add more wards until EVERYTHING fills because that's how they measure it. Scaling apartments is a new system. New systems are harder to implement. They could, ironically, completely scrap island sanctuaries and just a TON more housing wards so we can all have the house we want instead of a bandaid instanced housing apartment fix.

um actually housing works perfectly as I have a house and that means the system has no flaws

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Originally Posted by Stormpeaks

That's basically it really, it actually isnt as easy as op makes it seem like.

Lets say player A has a few venues, just a random number, 3-4 on their account, 1 house for submarines, 1 personal fc.

You are going to force that player to choose between their venues, their submarines or their personal fc, I'm not sure how that's fair, as I mentioned it earlier in this thread, that rule is fine, but it cant happen for past plot purchases, only in the future, and even then, its a stupid rule in itself, removing houses from multiowners wont all of a sudden give houses to everyone, that's ridiculous, the houses that will free up will be taken in a round or two at most, and then what ? Who do we hunt next ? People that dont decorate their houses ? Should they lose their houses too ? Or maybe those that dont log in daily, maybe if they dont log in a 3 days time limit their house should auto demolish ? Or maybe even people that dont do content, maybe if they dont complete savage they'll lose their houses too ?

The point is that, this constant hunt to try and take stuff away from people because some people think they are owed a house, simply because they play the game, and that it's their "right" to have one, is getting ridiculous.

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That is honestly just being selfish.

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Originally Posted by Stormpeaks

Entitlement is the worst thing there is, and the ones saying that they should remove all the houses from multiowners are entitled, they think they deserve it more than the multiowner that has worked on getting those houses for god knows how many months or years, but no, dont deserve it anymore than the multiowner.

I have said it a million times, on EU, there is more than enough housing, and as for NA, if you really want housing that bad, Dynamis exists, that's what I did on my NA character, I moved from Aether to Dynamis, and got a house in the first round in Shirogane.

They can expect a house, yes, but it doesnt say anywhere that they should expect a house on the biggest world in the game, obviously there will be scarcity as its limited.

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Yea… ward owners are totally fine yup.
Said nobody ever except the owners themselves.

1 personal and 1 FC is fair, beyond that it’s just nonsense as long as the resource is limited.

Doesn’t matter in the end, just need a better game with actual proper housing (bonus if it’s not tied to a sub). Then poof, gone are those people you disagree with because they dare want 1 good house, I’m not sure SE would appreciate but judging how they treat the matter it’ll be way to late when they do anything at all.

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Originally Posted by Kaiproberts

You are right, the answer is simple; the answer is just dynamically adding wards when the desirable houses fill or when filling slows. SE is just stubborn. They won't add more wards until EVERYTHING fills because that's how they measure it. Scaling apartments is a new system. New systems are harder to implement. They could, ironically, completely scrap island sanctuaries and just a TON more housing wards so we can all have the house we want instead of a bandaid instanced housing apartment fix.

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We don't know how their infrastructure is like though. From a software POV, it might be possible to have it automatically scalable (adding more wards as an if/else statement), it's possible they still use physical hardware or are maxed out in their data center that holds housing data.

We actually are in a similar issue at work where all our virtual environments are "maxed" and we can't add more RAM or CPU cores cause we'd need to replace the hardware in our data center or move to a 3rd party like Amazon AWS.

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Originally Posted by Kailea_Nagisa

That is honestly just being selfish.

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Way to miss the entire point of my post, well done. That's not how reading works, you cant just read what you want and ignore the entire rest of the post.

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Originally Posted by True-to-Caesar

Yea… ward owners are totally fine yup.
Said nobody ever except the owners themselves.

1 personal and 1 FC is fair, beyond that it’s just nonsense as long as the resource is limited.

Doesn’t matter in the end, just need a better game with actual proper housing (bonus if it’s not tied to a sub). Then poof, gone are those people you disagree with because they dare want 1 good house, I’m not sure SE would appreciate but judging how they treat the matter it’ll be way to late when they do anything at all.

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I mean ward owners are fine yes, there is nothing wrong with ward housing, however as was suggested in this forum, they could add bigger apartments in the size of medium and large, with 1 or 2 floors as a solution to the scarcity on extremely high populated worlds.

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

It's possible they still use physical hardware or are maxed out in their data center that holds housing data.

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If thats the case, then their backend is extremely bad. I cant imagine them running hundreds of physical servers all dedicated towards a single dungeon instance. They most likely already instance the servers on physical servers. But that doesnt mean they cannot scale up things (yes, during corona this was an issue they faced, but that is most likely already resolved now). They most likely have plenty of spare capacity on the servers these days, but run into limitations elsewhere that cause issues. And usualy this has to do with bandwidth. While you can store a huge amount of data, transferring this will quickly run into limitations even on servers. Having more data therefor doesnt mean that all that data is easily used. And as housing can quickly demand a lot of data (compared to a dungeon, inventories of 4 players vs a fully decorated house can be a diffirence), they very likely limit the housing based on this.

Add to that an outdated storage method that has its quirks, and it can add even more overhead (imagine that each time you visit the house, it has to gather the entire housing information instead of caching it, where this housing info is an uncompressed data format). All on a single DC server that stores all player information. That single server can very quickly reach limitations. They most likely mitigated the housing towards dedicated housing servers for this purpose already. But that doesnt mean that they instantly can do everything at max speed either. More houses means more players connecting, therefor requiring player information to be sent over to that housing server (for example things like retainer info and glam data and very likely other things im not aware of).

This is where is suspect the real problems lie. Even if everything is in a local network, bandwidth limitations are still a thing. And this also counts for internal RAM! Copying data over within RAM faces an internal bandwith