Adressing the roots of the housing problem

[illgot]

snip

They could allow people in apartments go outside to a personal "roof" which gives them access to a yard to train chocobo and use planting beds.

I'm not sure why they aren't focusing on instanced houses more than adding new wards.

[Elamys]

That would work too, and as mentioned earlier, could give people a chance to use outdoor furnishings. They say instances would be too hard on the servers, but as others have pointed out, the ward system takes up a lot more space because it's always present. An instance is only generated when I access it. And all houses are technically instanced anyways. Ugh. It's so frustrating lol. Why can't they just come out and say they want housing to be scarce? The hand-wringing and "we're sorrys" is getting really old.

[Kytrin]

I'm not sure why they aren't focusing on instanced houses more than adding new wards.

They said at one point that there were some very real memory/server issues with the instanced apartments that made setting those up not viable currently. I'm really, really, hoping that with the immediate backlash from 4.1 housing dealt with they'll actually follow through on Yoshida's promise to take a much longer and harder look at our apartments and try to solve that issue as well. Doing so would alleviate a great deal of stress and discontent on both sides of the equation I think.

[Hsr38]

I bought a crystal ball who tells the future!. Hear what it tells about patch 4.2:

The week after the patch is being released the new wards will be ALL AVAILABLE like patch 4.1! So get your alarm rd, coffee, and your spiritual objects! Yes, spiritual objects! Because you will need to use them for beating all the disconnect/connect problems and the most feared of all: The Log in BTN of Death!

After all this done and you get finally in, run! as your life depends on it, to maybe have a chance of finding an available plot. But hey, don't get too much excited yet! There is more!:

If you want to get a personal house (which is definitely not what people want in this game), you need to be patient bro... cause your time will only happen after all houses are gone. Yes! just after they are ALL GONE!.

SE finally listened to us! So lets thank them all and continue to pay our subscription at the end of each month like all the house owners

[MizArai]

I wish I understood why SE seems to be so against adding access to gardening, chocobo stables, and airships to people without houses. If they want to keep the ward system, it's the only way to keep things fair - essentially make it so that having a house is only for QoL/prestige.

Put a public stable in Bentbranch, airship hangar in Mor Dhona (or next to your squadron door) and greenhouse...somewhere. For aiships and greenhouses, maybe pay a fee to use them. This is a very elegant solution to the biggest problem with limited housing (content that you can't access because you don't have a house), it's been suggested hundreds of times, but they just won't do it.

If you have an apartment, then you have access to chocobo stables. Every apartment building has a stable in front of it for the people that own apartments there.

A second idea for airships out in the world would be to lock it behind ixal beast tribes, then give you access to it in N Shroud or Ul'dah. Or maybe after you hit 60, you could access them in Foundation (since you can access airships there to do Diadem).

Not sure where a good place for greenhouses would be. Probably somewhere in The Black Shroud or La Noscea, though I can't think of how to make it fit with lore off-hand. Though I can think of a couple of farms in lower level zones for both areas.

[MizArai]

They said at one point that there were some very real memory/server issues with the instanced apartments that made setting those up not viable currently. I'm really, really, hoping that with the immediate backlash from 4.1 housing dealt with they'll actually follow through on Yoshida's promise to take a much longer and harder look at our apartments and try to solve that issue as well. Doing so would alleviate a great deal of stress and discontent on both sides of the equation I think.

I totally missed them saying that. I know that before apartments launched it had seemed like there were going to be up to 512 apartments per building. Then they let us know the buildings would release with 90 apartments, but Yoshida said it would be a simple thing for them to add more if needed, and they could expand them up to 256 or 512 apartments per building (I forget which and honestly don't feel like searching for the quote atm). I know he had said something about them looking into possibly expanding apartments after 4.2, but I know they've looked into lots of stuff in the past and never told us anything else about it.

Personally I'd love for them to look into letting us upgrade the inside of our house. Example, you already own a small house, instead of trying to relocate to a dream plot that's larger, pay x amount of gil (maybe like 80% of plot price or something) and let people upgrade the inside to the size of a medium or large plot. I'd be fine with a tiny yard as long as I had more space inside my house. If I can breathe underwater and change the appearance of my clothes based on magic, why can't we change the inside of a house?

[Elamys]

If you have an apartment, then you have access to chocobo stables. Every apartment building has a stable in front of it for the people that own apartments there.

A second idea for airships out in the world would be to lock it behind ixal beast tribes, then give you access to it in N Shroud or Ul'dah. Or maybe after you hit 60, you could access them in Foundation (since you can access airships there to do Diadem).

Not sure where a good place for greenhouses would be. Probably somewhere in The Black Shroud or La Noscea, though I can't think of how to make it fit with lore off-hand. Though I can think of a couple of farms in lower level zones for both areas.

while I get it's an "lol balmung" issue, there aren't any apartments free here, so not everyone can access even stables here.

[worldofneil]

while I get it's an "lol balmung" issue, there aren't any apartments free here, so not everyone can access even stables here.

To the best of my knowledge I think Balmung is the only one where all the apartments are sold out (is that still the case if people are slowly moving off?)

Although SE have said they can increase the apartment amounts, they probably don't want to as it'd be across all worlds (same settings for every server), so other servers that still have loads of room would have even more!

[MizArai]

while I get it's an "lol balmung" issue, there aren't any apartments free here, so not everyone can access even stables here.

With 4.2 there will be 4320 more apartments added when they add the 6 more wards. I'm hoping that will help Balmung. I remember hearing about how the apartments sold out the day they became available. Though even then, you have to be 50 and all that mess before you can get an apartment, which means if someone is starting out and part of an FC with no house (or not part of any FC), they wouldn't have access to chocobo stables until they could buy an apartment, so having a public one available earlier (even if it cost gil to use) might be a good option for them to think about. Maybe add an option to the chocobo porter in the main cities to have them look after your chocobo and you give them like 50 gil and some sort of treat for your chocobo. Just trying to think of ideas off the top of my head. You're right, they could come up with something.

To the best of my knowledge I think Balmung is the only one where all the apartments are sold out (is that still the case if people are slowly moving off?)

I was pretty sure they sold out on Gilgamesh too, though that's probably not the case anymore with so many transfers off that world.

[worldofneil]

With 4.2 there will be 4320 more apartments added when they add the 6 more wards.

GOOD POINT! I hadn't thought of that