[Suggestion] Solving the "Housing Problem"

[Solarra]

I see what you are saying Nettle, but Garrisons were nothing like housing. I hated mine, too. No customisation of buildings, no choice regarding npcs, no actual house or even a bed for your character to sleep on, and so much busy-work connected to it, you could easily fill a play session there on your own, just doing 'chores'. Player choice was limited pretty much to,
'You can put your barn here or you can put it over there. And no, you can't change the look of the buidings.'
Horde were stuck with spikes and no roofs in the snow while Alliance had their pretty Disney-style fort in the forest. The farm in Pandaria was closer to instanced housing and the response to that was very positive IIRC.

In FFXIV wards were originally designed for FCs and that makes sense. I go to my personal house every day, but I rarely see anyone whereas our FC house usually has a few people inside using the crafting room and a bunch of people in the garden waiting for instances, training chocos etc. It's a nice social place to hang out and we often see members of other FCs at the market boards or bells.

If instanced housing was offered to individuals and the wards went back to being for FCs, I think we'd get much more community feeling than we will by sticking to the system we have. But instanced housing has to be attractive; it has to have advantages over what we have now. Apartments are a step in the right direction, but since they are basically a more expensive FC room, with the same limitations and no opportunity to garden, they aren't terribly popular.
If instanced housing offered people say, interesting locations (town house in Ishgard, desert island near Mist etc.), the opportunity to upgrade to a bigger house, more outdoor furniture and wasn't subject to the timer, I think quite a few of us would be tempted to swap to it from our personal houses.

[Penthea]

I see what you are saying Nettle, but Garrisons were nothing like housing. I hated mine, too. No customisation of buildings, no choice regarding npcs, no actual house or even a bed for your character to sleep on, and so much busy-work connected to it, you could easily fill a play session there on your own, just doing 'chores'. Player choice was limited pretty much to, 'You can put your barn here or you can put it over there. And no, you can't change the look of the buidings.'

Even if garrisons had actual customisation half as good as FFXIV they still would have gotten a lot of hate because the main gripe seemed to be the isolation it caused. Of course the garrison had too much functionality which decreased the likelihood of players idling elsewhere, but there is no doubt that a huge part of the isolation happened because of the instancing itself. WoW's biggest mistake with garrisons was letting only individuals own it. I'm sure they would have been at least moderately successful if they belonged to guilds instead.

If instanced housing was offered to individuals and the wards went back to being for FCs, I think we'd get much more community feeling than we will by sticking to the system we have. But instanced housing has to be attractive; it has to have advantages over what we have now.

If instanced housing offered people say, interesting locations (town house in Ishgard, desert island near Mist etc.), the opportunity to upgrade to a bigger house, more outdoor furniture and wasn't subject to the timer, I think quite a few of us would be tempted to swap to it from our personal houses.

I would be okay with instanced housing if it was in addition to what we have now. To make this work wards would need to be more attractive to fcs than individuals, and instanced housing would have to be more attractive to individuals than fcs. Let players choose what they want but have one be the obvious better choice depending on their situation.

I would not be okay with instanced housing if everything else was scrapped and that's all we were left with. I'm totally against forcing players to isolate themselves or their fc from the rest of the game.

[Dustytome]

Even if garrisons had actual customisation half as good as FFXIV they still would have gotten a lot of hate because the main gripe seemed to be the isolation it caused. .

I think part of the issue there was obligatory isolation. You had to be isolated for a lot of the features. The idea behind it could have been fun but the way they did it would likely have been better served as a guild keep with individual player options. For legion they added class halls and I'm not sure how that worked out, but it seemed odd that they focused on making sure mostly strangers saw each other instead of bringing guilds together again.

[Penthea]

I think part of the issue there was obligatory isolation. You had to be isolated for a lot of the features. The idea behind it could have been fun but the way they did it would likely have been better served as a guild keep with individual player options. For legion they added class halls and I'm not sure how that worked out, but it seemed odd that they focused on making sure mostly strangers saw each other instead of bringing guilds together again.

Yea I did mention the garrisons had too much functionality but if they were for guilds instead at least players would have been isolated from other groups while being together with their own. But no instead Blizzard somehow thought it was a good idea to give a small town to one player.

It's kind of funny because players have been asking for guild halls from the beginning and instead they isolate players or group up strangers based on their class. Apparently it's too complicated to understand what a guild hall is (?). Whatever there is to be said of SE, I haven't yet seen them make a habit of introducing massive features that don't align with what players want or need.

[Moonlite]

[QUOTE=Penthea;4113082 Whatever there is to be said of SE, I haven't yet seen them make a habit of introducing massive features that don't align with what players want or need.[/QUOTE]

Just off the top of my head Tokens, scrips, weekly lockouts, diadem, vermillion, GC restrictions, refusal to design around storage capacity, specialist recipes, hunts.

I quit WoW a long time ago. But I am told garrisons allowed better leveling and gathering. So no point to leave. No one is asking them to put mining nodes in houses. Next Balmung is a huge server the world isn't that full. You can count the number of players in some zone on your hands. People already afk congregate in a few spots. "Oh No, less people afk in idylshire and uldah." The open world thing is dead once you reach max level. We might as well make people walk to each instance before they can enter.

Let us also not forget the cross world party finder. Grouping with players you will never see. So SE can keep dead servers open. That's immersive as well.

Unless SE has some magical fix that makes the current system FAIR for all players. Not seeing another player when I am at a house is not much of a loss.

[Penthea]

Just off the top of my head Tokens, scrips, weekly lockouts, diadem, vermillion, GC restrictions, refusal to design around storage capacity, specialist recipes, hunts.

Some of those are a matter of opinion and none of those are major expansions features on the scale that WoW garrisons were. Garrisons were central to the WoD expansion, it was literally the flagship feature. Something on a similar scale would be SE messing up flying, seeing as that is a major feature of the HW expansion.

I quit WoW a long time ago. But I am told garrisons allowed better leveling and gathering. So no point to leave.

There was a point in leaving up until you reached max lvl. WoW's end game has always mostly been about going into instances. The problem people had with garrisons was that players idled at their garrison instead of a hub when they were queueing for them, so places looked empty. It's not just about whether garrisons offered a garden for herbs and all the rest, it was also about how the majority of max lvl players chose to spend their time outside of instances in there. Of course you could definitely argue that Blizzard were at fault for not giving players a good reason to idle elsewhere.

Of course instanced housing can be done right without isolating players, but my point is that instancing by nature is isolation. Unless SE are careful about it, instanced housing could just replace one problem with another. Yea maybe I'm being too negative about the idea of it, but I was excited as hell for garrisons and it ended up being one of the worst things to happen to WoW. So yea the idea of making all housing in the game instanced just irks me because of it.

Let us also not forget the cross world party finder. Grouping with players you will never see. So SE can keep dead servers open. That's immersive as well.

This really has very little to do with housing. Even less so than WoW garrisons. I mean we may as well start arguing that a line of blue dots at the entrance of a zone isn't immersive.

[Moonlite]

This really has very little to do with housing. Even less so than WoW garrisons. I mean we may as well start arguing that a line of blue dots at the entrance of a zone isn't immersive.

The point is you seem to desire to see other players. You don't like players hanging out inside instances. The MMO of real communities were dead the instant they made cross server groups. What does it matter if you see someone standing in front of a house? Core game play is instanced players just don't have to see each other. You seem to think game play should be designed around the idea that players should idle next to each other.

Players in instanced housing has nothing to do with housing or garrisons. If gameplay is designed that open world interaction is pointless. Which it is currently in FF14. Once you have reached a certain gil amount you would never have to see another player outside an instance. Hell Once MSQ has everything unlocked you have zero reason to be outside. That is not the fault of instanced housing.

Instanced housing doesn't need to be done right. You have an instance, players have a house period. If developers can't convince you to go outside that is a game play flaw not a house flaw.