Individual players owning Large Houses for personal use. Yay or nay?

[Calteru]

Too late to respond to that now but a posting tip.

Write your post.
Save, get error about length.
Cut most of your post and save.
Edit your post
Paste cut text then save again.

The workaround for the 1000 character limit.

A good suggestion, thank you! I think what I'm going to do instead though is write them out in Word, get my character count and go from there. It's the method to which I've become the most accustomed. Multiple paths to victory, eh?

[Alleo]

One of the cornerstones of the community housing concept in an MMO is its reliance on homeowners to create content. My experience thus far has been limited to Mateus, but that experience has shown that wards lacking a large FC's presence tend to be very empty and lifeless.

And my experience is that all the houses with big FCs around my own small personal one are barely with life. If I see maybe two or three people around then this is already a busy day. Experiences can vary and a big FC does not necessarily mean much more activity than a smaller one. (My old little one was quite active at times and we did lots of stuff together) Also depending on the server one can be seen as a big or small. Also the size of the house surely should not stop people from being active in the wards. You can still throw a party with a small house and be fine with that too. Houses are probably just places to decorate for a lot of people , thus why a lot of us are wanting a big one since the smaller ones are simply not enough if you like to decorate a lot.

(Every post is in a way emotionally based. Your emotion comes from your experience with lively active wards that are mostly used by FC. Its probably near impossible to argue objectively about an topic that you are in any way part of. So saying that only FC should have big ones because they bring live to the wards is an emotional response. Because objectively the game does not care if they are alive or not. You dont need it for a quest to have a certain amount of people there and even if every single house would be owned by one person the wards would not stop to exit or would not work anymore. The devs might like to see them being alive but thats also just their emotional view on this, their vision of this system.

I and probably a lot of others already wrote enough ideas/solutions in this thread and others. Personal instanced housing would solve a lot of problems and for those that want to have wards they could leave the old ones still active. But at least if they introduce private instanced housing with the option to own a mansion [or more] would be quite a good step in the right direction. Having the really small amount of manors just being for FC will not solve the problems. And if you further only restrict it to a certain amount of people that need to be active you will just anger all the smaller FCs on the servers. And I would dare to say that the bigger servers would still have more FC that could buy a mansion but cant because they are barely any of them there.)

[Calteru]

RE: Alleo, 9:29am 10/20/17 -

In order:

* It seems we've had very different experiences then. I wonder why that is. Answering this particular question might prove useful to solving the overall housing issue.
* I can discuss the topic objectively. If I can do it, anyone can, given my personal issues with maintaining emotional control. It's not too much to ask to discuss IDEAS rather than the PEOPLE HAVING THEM. That's a key difference in civil discourse and one that is all-too-easily discarded in today's hyperbolic, vitriolic society.
* What you propose will put further drain on server resources. In order to ascertain if the suggestion is viable, hard data is required. Do we know how much, if at all, server costs will increase? Server use? What would the code look like to bring this solution about, and how would it interact with existing code? Forgive me for saying so, but it's simply not enough to say "do this".

[Zied]

I have a large personal plot (30) in Shirogane and I don't feel bad at all. In fact, I laugh at the people who whisper me asking me to sell it to them for their poor little FC who couldn't get one.

[Penthea]

R* I can discuss the topic objectively. If I can do it, anyone can, given my personal issues with maintaining emotional control. It's not too much to ask to discuss IDEAS rather than the PEOPLE HAVING THEM. That's a key difference in civil discourse and one that is all-too-easily discarded in today's hyperbolic, vitriolic society.

You have really come to the wrong place if you want conversation that isn't emotionally stirred. For various reasons there are a lot of angry or unhappy players here. Some of them feel like they will never get a house despite their efforts so they feel betrayed by the game, some feel unfairly targeted by some suggestions to change the system, some remember how they felt when they had no house, and the rest have blatantly stated they only care for themselves.

This is absolutely not intended as an insult to you. This is the truth. This forum is riddled with emotional responses. But this does not mean that they lose their merit. Humans are emotional people by nature. The best and the worst in us is often stirred by emotion. If you're going to disregard emotional responses, not only will you end up avoiding most posts, but you will also deprive yourself of players who make very good points from all sides of the conversation.

[Calteru]

I have a large personal plot (30) in Shirogane and I don't feel bad at all. In fact, I laugh at the people who whisper me asking me to sell it to them for their poor little FC who couldn't get one.

What are you doing as far as content creation goes?

[ErryK]

I'm personally of the mindset, as far as my own server goes, that large plots should be FC-only and the people currently owning large plots should be stripped of them and no Gil refunded, but I know that'll never happen.

The only way I'd probably support individual housing having access to large plots is if they separate FC plots from individual plots, like their original intention was, or they instance housing entirely so that anyone may purchase a plot of whatever size they want.

[Solarra]

I don't support this idea for the simple reason that if individuals are determined to own a large house, they will get around the restriction by making a single-player FC, just as people did when all housing was FC only (it's easy to level up a FC and there are plenty of one-player FCs out there already).
Square could try and prevent that by making levelling a FC harder (unlikely as it would be horribly unfair to new players), taking large houses away from FCs whose membership drops below a certain number or by insisting FCs can only keep their house by getting a certain number of GC seals in a given period of time. I still feel determined people would get round the restrictions and smaller active FCs or FCs experiencing a temporary drop in numbers would suffer as a result.

Personally, I feel offering the option of an instanced, upgradeable plot that is not subject to demolition might be a better solution. It would give more people access to housing and many people would probably choose it as a 'safer' alternative to owning a house in one of the wards. There are plenty of unused exits in the old wards (not sure about Shirogane), any of those could be used with the addition of a communal area with bells and MB outside.

[Zsolen]

I don't support FC only large houses. Once you open that up to all, it should remain that way.

I would support either a larger estate or a community instance that is FC only (not a ward with private housing since people leave or are kicked from FCs).

For the community, there could even gil/materials that would allow the further development for such instances, up to a degree. I'm thinking more visual items like airship landings and perhaps submarine pens but also things like a springs and/or swimming area. You could still have access to airships in traditional house sizes but without eye candy. This would provide a much needed gil sink. It would only be fair to mention drawbacks and questions. 1) The community would not be part of a ward, so social interaction would be more limited to members and visitors. 2) How many community instances would the servers hold? Would this be a major issue for them? I admit I am not knowledgeable about such things. 3) What layout should be used? Should it basically be a large hall with all the fixings and then some more visual items and items of duplicate use on top (when created). Should the company workshop be separated from the main hall? Should there be chambers or an apartment building? 4) Would it have an outdoor summoning bell or two and a market board?

For the larger estate, you would simply increase the current capacity you get with large housing. 4 gardens instead of 3.

So one is more original but what strain would it bring? The other is the more straight forward, but where do you place them?

[Elisaveta]

I think EVERYONE should be able to own a home. I don't care about having neighbors so instanced housing would be great for me. Maybe have some combo of current wards and instanced housing so at least everyone can have access to this stuff...

I played at launch and took like a 4 year break. Just before I quit is when housing was going to be released and remember thinking it sounded interesting. I had not played an MMO that had a housing system at that time. Fast forward 4 years later and I have bounced around a lot of other MMOs got to play with other housing systems and had a great time. I don't understand how FF14 hasn't resolved the housing issue this game has had since housing has been a thing. I feel so bad for the people who have been here the whole time hoping to get their own little home.

Something beyond more wards needs to be done IMHO. I think individuals should be able to have a home of any size and that everyone should have access to a home. The current ward system creates a shortage of housing and that's not fair.