My Housing system ideas

[Freyt]

Bit presumptuous of me but I figured I might as well try. The housing system as it stands is clearly not favorable. First let's go over the issues regarding the current housing system:

1. The lack of housing for the current number of players.
2. The disparity between a player owning one house versus a player owning multiple.
3. The value brought by the house being owned by an FC vs being owned by an individual.
4. That an FC house can be occupied by only 1 player.

These singular issues bring about some issues that occur as a result of a combination of these issues.

1. Because of the value generated by FC Housing, a single player owning multiple FC Houses can generate a vast amount of additional wealth as compared to a player with no access or limited access, in comparison, to the same systems.
2. Because of the value generated by FC Housing, an incentive to own multiple houses locks individual players out of owning their own.

I feel I've seen four specific solutions proposed by the majority of players here on the forum and elsewhere.

1. Add additional housing wards
2. Instance housing entirely
3. Enforce hard rules to limit each player to 1 house
4. Introduce a rent based system which costs players gil or resources to keep their house

These solutions all have their advantages and disadvantages.

Additional housing wards does give players an opportunity to get new houses, but it also gives players an opportunity to gain even more houses over what they already have, which only further compounds what the majority of the issues listed.

Instanced housing removes the limitation of players not owning a house at all, but does nothing to address any of the other issues specifically.

Enforcing a hard 1 house limit could address all of these issues, but a hard rule change would make many players feel unjustifiably targeted, and would have plenty of sympathizers, not to mention the actual difficulty of enforcing the rule across multiple account holders.

Introducing a rent based system only hurts the more common player, as the ones who have multiple FC houses have more than enough gil and earn more than enough to maintain and still make further income than what it costs.

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This is why I unfortunately feel that the best way to tackle this issue is a combination of changes, the most excruciating of which for many players would be to make profiting off of FC housing much more difficult to do for smaller FC's.

Currently to maintain a house of any sort, only one player is needed. In order to garden, only one player is needed. In order to send airships and submarines on exploratory voyages, only one player is needed. In order to build these airships and submarines multiple players are needed (4), but only 1 has to actually be a member of the FC itself.

I believe that having an FC house as a means of profit is part of the spirit of having an FC at all, for a group of players to build their group together. Removing the system completely does not appeal to me in that regard, but restricting it to a larger number of players seems reasonable and necessary, as well as a larger time commitment. This would also encourage smaller FC's to grow their player count, as well as try to encourage their members to participate as a group. I believe Diadem was meant to be one kind of method to this, but didn't go all the way, and failed. Some sort of system that involves a time commitment of at least 4-8 players, with the profits of those 4-8 players in mind, seems ideal.

The secondary change I would implement is instancing FC housing entirely, while keeping individual housing in wards. I believe housing in FFXIV was designed for players to experience their neighbors unique ideas and inspiration for their housing decoration. Instancing housing entirely, because of this, seems like the wrong idea for me.

Currently new wards restrict new purchases to FC houses. It's clear that the developers wish for FC's to have full access to FC functions, and so having them instanced would eliminate the competition for them entirely. They would still be able to decorate their instanced house and use it as a central hub for their members to gather. Using the current relocation system it should be possible to move all current FC's into these instanced houses without much issue.

Locking 1 account on one world to 1 individual house seems ideal. The idea has been presented before for alternate characters on an account to have access to a house owned by another character, and this would fall in line with the 1 personal house limitation. The combination of moving FC houses into instances, and locking personal houses to 1, should clear up the wards by a fair amount, and give most, or all players, access to their own personal house.

And finally gardening need not be restricted to housing. With the other changes, however, many more individuals should have access to gardening, and therefore it might not be a problem in itself. A single account could still have more than one garden in each of their characters instanced FC houses, however. Removing gardening from housing entirely would overcome this issue, and could be account wide outside of housing as well.

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These are the changes I believe are necessary in order to solve most or all off the current dilemmas faced by the housing system as it is today. Some of these I believe are incredibly simple for SE to implement, and others may be more difficult and tedious. Perhaps SE wouldn't consider it to be worth it to implement any of these changes. Perhaps further changes would have to be made in order to make these successful entirely. Personally I think implementing some of these changes would save them time, effort, and resources, over the strategy of constantly adding new housing wards.

Like, comment, and subscribe if you agree.

[Barraind]

I believe housing in FFXIV was designed for players to experience their neighbors unique ideas and inspiration for their housing decoration. Instancing housing entirely, because of this, seems like the wrong idea for me.

Housing in 14 was designed specifically for FC's.

Your proposed idea would make it harder to do any of the things people use FC's for (Have fun trying to get multiple people to sit around in the workshop every time you want to send out ships/subs, especially if you arent sending them all to the same place, no matter how large your FC is) and solve more or less none of the issues the housing system has.

FC's arent struggling to find houses, FC's are struggling to find Large houses.



Make everything instanced, keep one ward of each housing district as the hub zone for those instances, populate it with more vendors to turn it into a true hub city, make garden patches usable inside and bam, you fix almost all the problems housing has.

[Tomoebi]

[*]Instance housing entirely
Liek, comment, and pay my sub if you agree.

I dont liek the idea of instanced housing. there is a feels good sensation of owning a house where the others can not. i'm sure yoshida understand my feelings...

[Keridwyn]

I dont liek the idea of instanced housing. there is a feels good sensation of owning a house where the others can not. i'm sure yoshida understand my feelings...

I own a medium. I would give up my ward plot in a heartbeat for an instance to call my own as long as I can expand it and decorate the inside and outside how I wish. Even better if it means my friends can now also do the same. Judging by the fact Yoshida and the team continually add more wards, compromised the FC only Ward system to include player housing, have taken steps to limit the number of houses one can own as well as making plots vacate if you're not active to let new owners buy them...no I don't think your viewpoint is one the devs share. Maybe one they consider when taking their actions but all signs point to making housing more available and not less.

[reivaxe]

I'd be down for instanced housing personally.

I just got a small, transferred to a better spot on a different ward and now I've found myself in the middle of no-men's-land. Like ... I have been out here messing around with the yard for a week straight and I have only seen 1 player. Made me figure "whats the point of this system if everyone's just gonna AFK in LL or where ever and not engage with the housing system?"

(Yes, I know this may be a strange ward and not every ward is a ghost town full of houses people prob visit once a month to keep but yeah ... might as well try to make a hybrid system for people who want a small/ med/ large to make up and invite people to yet are ok with not having a community around them if that's easier to do. IDK their code)

[TalithaSolarien]

FC's arent struggling to find houses, FC's are struggling to find Large houses.

FC's don't need Large houses, no more then single players need them. With exception of gardening the only major added value is more rooms to decorate for the home owner (in this case the FC leader). Very, very, very few FC use them to hold meeting and there are no other (valid) added values for a FC to have a large house.

[Freyt]

Your proposed idea would make it harder to do any of the things people use FC's for

Yes, that's the idea. Explatory voyages don't make sense for an FC when only one person in the FC has to engage with it at all.

[Barraind]

FC's don't need Large houses, no more then single players need them. With exception of gardening the only major added value is more rooms to decorate for the home owner (in this case the FC leader). Very, very, very few FC use them to hold meeting and there are no other (valid) added values for a FC to have a large house.

I agree.

And gardening doesnt need to be tied to housing size anyway.

Yes, that's the idea. Explatory voyages don't make sense for an FC when only one person in the FC has to engage with it at all.

Which is why your idea is awful.

[Arillyn]

If SE were to restrict a certain kind of housing (FC vs individual) to the wards it should be FC in the wards and individual to instance. I wish they would implement instance housing that isn't restricted to one room (looking at you apartments). Make it so you can have any size house you want and a yard - I know a lot of people who would turn in their ward house for an instance option such as that (so long as they allow you to let your friends visit your instance house which I imagine SE would since you can do that with apartments).

As for forcing small FCs to grow their member count for some housing, that is silly. Some people like being in large FCs and others do not. Those who choose to have a small or medium FC member count for that close-knit community feel shouldn't be penalized for it in regards to housing.

[Nabril]

FC's don't need Large houses, no more then single players need them. With exception of gardening the only major added value is more rooms to decorate for the home owner (in this case the FC leader). Very, very, very few FC use them to hold meeting and there are no other (valid) added values for a FC to have a large house.

My FC has given almost everyone the ability to decorate the FC house. We all contribute and so we all have the ability to drop in new furniture. We also use our War Room for meetings.