What does Heavensward actually bring to the table as an expansion?

[Colorful]

"No one needs a housing system to be social" this is strictly your opinion, so please stop using word such as "No one". Garrisons is a mobile game, there is very little content beside sitting there click a few button then wait for missions to finish. Anti-social wasnt the whole reason, but it sure is one why Garrison failed.

I do not want nor do i care for your silence, what I do care is SE changing the experience that I and some other players(may not be the majority and may be, i dont know) enjoy.

"Why do you feel your artificially created social experience (that you could have anywhere else outside the wards) is worth me (and others) not getting to have a house at all?" And why do you feel taking away my(and many other's) social experience is worth you getting a house? Its a MMO, its meant to be social. Want a real house sim? play sims 4.

Lastly if its as you said, that instance is more cost efficient, than why havent they done so yet(and from the start)? I will say im no programming expert, but im in progress of obtaining a degree in said field, so i would like to see more concrete evidences of resources usage. Which i dont believe we would ever see.

Unless they can work out a method for everyone with the appropriate amount of gil to purchase a house (which is impossible due to server load, from what we've been told) then it should be made instanced, period. If they even have 1 million subscribers then the majority (by a long shot) don't have access to a house, and will never have a house. Or would you rather pay an extra amount per month for the money spent on developing housing content that the majority can't access, you do seem to want to keep it available to the minority because it's... social? I hang around my FC house the majority of the time, and the only people I interact with are the FC members, if FC housing was also instanced that wouldn't change, but I believe FC housing should retain the ward system and player housing should be made instanced.

As to why they didn't do so from the start, who knows? They've shown they lack the foresight to imagine that more than 5% of players would want a house, that mudra lag would be a problem if someone didn't live right near where the servers were located, that inventory just might become a problem with the continuous addition of new classes, etc. As for evidence, no one but SE can provide that, but we can compare it to preexisting systems. The reason we can't use our retainer's inventory on the go is to lessen server stress, they're not saving the data of retainers every so and so unless summoned. I'd compare it to running an app in the background of your phone, it takes far less resources. The same could be done with housing, if no one's in the house it doesn't need to be taking so much server resources, but with the way it's set up that's always going to happen. There's always going to be at least one person in a ward.