Housing: there has to be a better way

[Maero]

Also I'm not saying that the PS4 doesn't run well with XIV - but step back and ask this... what other MMO has housing and is on console?

Elder Scrolls Online which i would go as far to say is a larger game then FFXIV, see ESO has instanced housing and i purchased a large house a month after housing was released with no issues. ( and also on PS4)

Here i have been playing FFXIV for 4 years and have been trying since housing was introduced and still have been unable to get one...

[Tele-Viper]

Elder Scrolls Online which i would go as far to say is a larger game then FFXIV, see ESO has instanced housing and i purchased a large house a month after housing was released with no issues. ( and also on PS4)

Here i have been playing FFXIV for 4 years and have been trying since housing was introduced and still have been unable to get one...

The issue is housing itself is rare and expensive. And a status symbol. Instanced houses would ruin both the community of having neighborhoods and the specialness of the housing itself.

[Azurymber]

The issue is housing itself is rare and expensive. And a status symbol. Instanced houses would ruin both the community of having neighborhoods and the specialness of the housing itself.

Housing wards are mostly dead.
And there is nothing rare or expensive about them.
A Large house is a week of farming/crafting (a day if you do it on patch-release day).
And the "rare" factor only comes from the fact that they implemented them poorly and allowed some people to make 100's of mil by buying and flipping them (and LOTS of people did that).

[Miste]

Instanced houses would ruin both the community of having neighborhoods and the specialness of the housing itself.

Well if SE wanted to they could possibly just do both?

Keep the wards system they have now and still slowly expand it still maybe, but also create instanced housing for the overflow and anyone willing to accept that their house isn't in a ward with neighbours etc can just purchase those. So anyone who misses their chance at ward housing or simply just doesn't want to deal with the server up stampede can purchase their solo instance housing and keep it indefinitely and avoid the hassle, stiff competition, and stress of trying to rush at server up.

People willing to put effort in and try to beat the competition and also current owners can still keep their ward homes and show them off etc, but others who just want a house and don't care about it being in a ward neighbourhood can also have homes too to enjoy the content of decorating, having a place to call their own and hang out at, and inviting friends over etc.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

The issue is housing itself is rare and expensive. And a status symbol. Instanced houses would ruin both the community of having neighborhoods and the specialness of the housing itself.

No one cares about "specialness." That's an absurd stance to take for a feature the vast majority of players are denied because SE won't embrace instanced housing. Who cares if the community aspect is "ruined"? The wards are usually dead.

[HyoMinPark]

The issue is housing itself is rare and expensive. And a status symbol. Instanced houses would ruin both the community of having neighborhoods and the specialness of the housing itself.

It doesn’t matter. This system is broken. Quite frankly, I don’t really care if people want to feel “special” owning a house—I would rather everyone have equal chances to own one. And, as it stands, that is not the case. And it doesn’t even have anything to do with costs of the housing. Can’t log in at zero hour on a day like this for housing? Too bad. Don’t run on an SSD and things load too slowly? Too bad. Number #736 in a queue on a populated server? Don’t even try. The only way to really get a house in this game is to get lucky, or to “illegally” purchase one from a house flipper.

Like other posters have said before, the “neighborhoods” on most servers are completely dead. I rarely see anyone in mine, and I have owned a house in The Beds for several months now. The houses around me may have pretty yards, but they are more or less a ghost town. Instanced housing is the better option to make housing more fair for everyone. Really, everyone should be able to own a house, and instanced housing is the only way to guarantee that. Seeing the issues so many people are having just trying to get the servers to download he Patch right now, this game’s servers could not handle any more wards; I’m thoroughly convinced the infrastructure and hardware is horribly dated.

[SanyaTsukiko]

The only way to really get a house in this game is to get lucky, or to “illegally” purchase one from a house flipper.

No, it's not the only way, at least not for a good organized FC. You can save up a lot of cash in the FC, or have one person craft tons, rest farm, sell a lot of stuff, have like at least 4-5 ppl rushing a ward each, everyone with enough money in their bags. Cause chance is, some ppl will have trouble logging in, some will not. You're upping the chances a lot if you do it that way. That's what we did, and now we got a mansion. We prepared well for the race. I understand that isn't a comfort, and I am sad for the ppl who didn't get a house, but it is a race after all, although it shouldn't need to be, since we all pay sub and want to have fun in all aspects of the game. But we KNEW it was gonna be hard to get a house, so we armed up. They need to be a rank that can purchase plots for the FC too ofc. Teamspeak or discord helps too.