Lost my House

[Bright-Flower]

Having a sub does not mean participating in content. Housing is content. Having your sub does not entitle you to hold something that is limited even if you dont log in.




Youre identifying a shortcoming with apartments, and suggesting the solution is to create more housing by restructuring how the servers themselves work so every house is a single instance and everything is separated and isolated. If this is an issue people have, it might actually be better to advocate for a much more advanced Apartment system. For example, you could have small/medium/large size apartments that all cost different things. Small apts are what we got now, medium have a up and downstairs similar in size to a cottage, a large apartment would have up and down stairs with an outdoor balcony section that holds 10 yard items (with some limitations, such as large outdoor items might have to be restricted for obvious reasons.) Theyll have different price tiers, and item limits of course. So on so forth. Point is, We could do instanced housing in a sense by reworking how apartments work while leaving the current housing system in place.



I liked a great many things about WildStars housing system, however I will not deny that it also felt isolated and lonely. Yes, I could visit any house I watned to see something, but it doesnt have the same feel FFXIV does in terms of wards feeling more alive overall. It's definitely not perfect on FFXIV and theres a lot of room to debate how things should proceed, but I do like how it works currently from a look and feel standpoint.

Sure you sacrifice having a 'neightborhood' but I'd 100% take instanced housing over the wards, so that housing will be open to the playerbase at large rather than being in limited supply. If they let you upgrade apartments to match the interior of houses over time, like upgrading your house in animal crossing, then that might be one thing. But I dont' think the positives of wards outweigh the negatives without adding several more wards at least.

[Avidria]

Sure you sacrifice having a 'neightborhood' but I'd 100% take instanced housing over the wards, so that housing will be open to the playerbase at large rather than being in limited supply. If they let you upgrade apartments to match the interior of houses over time, like upgrading your house in animal crossing, then that might be one thing. But I dont' think the positives of wards outweigh the negatives without adding several more wards at least.

Yeah I agree here
The wards, in my experience, are often mostly empty anyway. My fc mates hang out in front of our house often enough, but I almost never see any of our neighbors. I see maybe one or two other people hanging around by my house too, and it's usually sitting at the mb or retainer bell. I'm in the Goblet, and I think the best way I can think to put it is that the place feels kind of like a neighborhood in the middle of a miserable hot day when absolutely no one wants to be outside except those like three people who want to get fresh air and that one dude who's gotta walk his dog. Seeing any other players at all is a pleasant surprise.

I'd rather have a large house I can decorate however I want and maybe chill in the yard with people than a whole empty neighborhood where most players will never be able to live.

Granted I'd prefer some hybrid solution, where you don't necessarily need to give up wards - like greatly improving and expanding apartments, for instance, or having wards with like... condos and townhouses, with multiple levels so you can expand up and fit more than one person's house in a plot. Maybe size them somewhere between small/med and med/large... as an in between type of housing. I dunno. Unless there's some hardware or programming limitation, I don't see why say, Ishgard housing for example would need to follow the same template as the other housing areas. If it's confirmed it most likely *will* buuuut. Still interesting to think about.

[Melichoir]

Sure you sacrifice having a 'neightborhood' but I'd 100% take instanced housing over the wards, so that housing will be open to the playerbase at large rather than being in limited supply. If they let you upgrade apartments to match the interior of houses over time, like upgrading your house in animal crossing, then that might be one thing. But I dont' think the positives of wards outweigh the negatives without adding several more wards at least.

I suppose this is the disagreement then. I would hands down take our current model over instanced wards, even if it meant more people have access to housing. All instancing would do is turn houses into glorified apartments by that point, and diminish the fun and interest of them. At least with the given proposal of apartments in different tiers that are instanced, you could have both and satisfy most everyone's desires if people just want a space to decorate and do basic farming.

But to be honest, a cynical part of me believes the housing demand is the way it is cause people do want the neighborhood aspect along with the fact its a limited resource people perceive a greater value to it, regardless of if they would do something with it. For better or worse, we all know that half the houses currently are almost bare or decorated in such a fashion where someone bought a few vendor items, threw them into the house, and called it a day cause they got bored. So how many people advocating for personal housing really would do something more with it than just the bare minimum?

[Eldevern]

So how many people advocating for personal housing really would do something more with it than just the bare minimum?

Fair question, I can only reply for myself. My dream housing can be full instancied, I don't care about show off. What would be nice is an evolutive housing, even (if) shared with alts, that you can start as little house and upgrade with floors and several rooms or annex depending of how many gils you have, your needs and wishes. Something that allow people to be really creative.

[Melichoir]

Instanced housing could be fine as long as the plots that are instanced are like the plots are now. When you go into an instanced area, you appear at the entrance to the plot - not inside the house - and it would look much like what we have now. Paying for a plot would be the same (minus the competition and waiting) and you pay for a plot at a fixed price. The amount you pay gives you back the size of lot you want.
Neighborhoods are quite honestly worthless in FFXIV. Yes, they are nice, but no one uses it as such - there's not any, or hardly any, interaction between neighbors. FCs are about the only interaction in neighborhoods, and that's done on their plot or in their FC house.

This would pretty much solve the issues with degradation of housing for subscriptions, everyone could access it if they want to, you can visit your FC if you want to, and take care of and decorate your plot/house just like we are now. You just lose a "neighborhood". To that I say, "So what?" because we don't ever use it like that.

I get how instanced housing would work, and it still comes across as a glorified apartment and not nearly as interesting to me as neighborhoods. You may think theyre useless, and maybe from a functional stand point they are, but from an aesthetics standpoint I think it's superior and worth while. So the question then becomes if you want a house like object thats instanced, why not advocate for better apartments instead fo gutting the housing system that people such as myself do appreciate? Bear in mind if neighbor hoods dont matter, then why is location so important to players. I see a lot of players forgo Goblet housing in favor of other districts. Or skipping past certain locations simply because theyre not as ideal for one reason or another. I feel that neighborhood and the like does matter more than given credit.

Can only speak for myself, but I'd decorate my house to the nines if I could. I have a medium, but it's too small and too limited for me to either take full advantage of the space or set up the rooms the way I want without some INCREDIBLY frustrating glitching and hours of microadjustments to get the walls and lofts exactly the way I want them. That's a side grievance with decorating in this game though :P

Even with relocate privileges it's gonna take something close to a miracle for me to snag a large if, say, Ishgard housing gets added. I care a heck of a lot more about my own decorating than I do about having neighbors that I'll almost never see and likely never talk to.

Fair question, I can only reply for myself. My dream housing can be full instancied, I don't care about show off. What would be nice is an evolutive housing, even (if) shared with alts, that you can start as little house and upgrade with floors and several rooms or annex depending of how many gils you have, your needs and wishes. Something that allow people to be really creative.

I dont doubt either of you would decorate the house and put effort in it and use it. But my point is given how many people fight for housing, get a house, then dont do jack with it, I am wondering if the demand for houses is as high as people assume it is. I am not asking people to invest an arm and a leg into making it super fashionable. It may not be 100% for everyone in that regards, sure. I mean I love decorating mine and what not. Im proud of my upstairs currently and thinking about remodeling the downstairs. But maybe thats not everyone. But seeing a house with a sole chair and possibly a bed and nothing else, or just storage for event housing items just thrown where ever and nothing else just makes me think that people are getting houses and once they have one, they just dont do jack with it. Those people are eating up housing for people who would put effort and time into having one.

[Eldevern]

...

You can doubt as much as you want, I did it with my first two mansions. And they were still too little (I want a castle or Haukke Manor or maybe share the castel with Feo :3). And now what bother me is both that apartements are so tiny and we can't even have a proper use of the mezzanine since we need to use glitchs to put something on.

[Greyhawk]

I suppose this is the disagreement then. I would hands down take our current model over instanced wards, even if it meant more people have access to housing. All instancing would do is turn houses into glorified apartments by that point, and diminish the fun and interest of them. At least with the given proposal of apartments in different tiers that are instanced, you could have both and satisfy most everyone's desires if people just want a space to decorate and do basic farming.

But to be honest, a cynical part of me believes the housing demand is the way it is cause people do want the neighborhood aspect along with the fact its a limited resource people perceive a greater value to it, regardless of if they would do something with it. For better or worse, we all know that half the houses currently are almost bare or decorated in such a fashion where someone bought a few vendor items, threw them into the house, and called it a day cause they got bored. So how many people advocating for personal housing really would do something more with it than just the bare minimum?

Instanced housing could be fine as long as the plots that are instanced are like the plots are now. When you go into an instanced area, you appear at the entrance to the plot - not inside the house - and it would look much like what we have now. Paying for a plot would be the same (minus the competition and waiting) and you pay for a plot at a fixed price. The amount you pay gives you back the size of lot you want.
Neighborhoods are quite honestly worthless in FFXIV. Yes, they are nice, but no one uses it as such - there's not any, or hardly any, interaction between neighbors. FCs are about the only interaction in neighborhoods, and that's done on their plot or in their FC house.

This would pretty much solve the issues with degradation of housing for subscriptions, everyone could access it if they want to, you can visit your FC if you want to, and take care of and decorate your plot/house just like we are now. You just lose a "neighborhood". To that I say, "So what?" because we don't ever use it like that.

[Packetdancer]

Neighborhoods are quite honestly worthless in FFXIV. Yes, they are nice, but no one uses it as such - there's not any, or hardly any, interaction between neighbors. FCs are about the only interaction in neighborhoods, and that's done on their plot or in their FC house.

That actually hasn't been my experience with my house, but I admit I may be an outlier.

When I got my house back in October, two of my neighbors saw me setting up my yard and came by to say hello. (One brought furniture as a housewarming gift.) I ended up friending them, and I've run roulettes with one. There are others I see around the neighborhood—practicing with dummies in their yard, doing gardening, whatever—and wave to. (And then who I see at other hubs like Gridania or Eulmore and wave to there as well.) Some of my neighbors like the sort of zen-garden yard I've set up and come to chill there.

This isn't to say there aren't houses where I've never met the tenants as well. I'd say of the closest eight houses to me, I've only met five of my neighbors, which isn't a great percentage considering I've been there for six months. But I do like the neighborhood feel; it makes me more likely to go visit my house just to chill in the yard than I ever was back in WildStar or SWTOR.

But non-instanced housing has drawbacks, too. No system is perfect; there are pros and cons to both.

The biggest problem, honestly, is gardening. Housing glamour is wholly optional content, but gardening can be darn near vital if you want to be a self-sufficient crafter. And you cannot garden without a house. That is a huge problem, and one they need to address. Because that makes having housing (or access to your FC's garden plots, or those of a friend) non-optional.

[hydralus]

but gardening can be darn near vital if you want to be a self-sufficient crafter..

They're not bind-on-drop so you can always buy them off the marketplace. So really it's an option between spending gil or not spending gil.

[Edax]

The biggest problem, honestly, is gardening. Housing glamour is wholly optional content, but gardening can be darn near vital if you want to be a self-sufficient crafter. And you cannot garden without a house. That is a huge problem, and one they need to address.

No it's not. The only viable thing to grow is Thav Onions. Just about everything is extremely difficult to sell and produces barely any gil over the price of seeds and soil. They increased the amount of housing which increased crop output without introducing new important crops which destroyed the gardening market. Your not going to become self-sufficient by growing your mats, if anything you'll reduce your profits because instead of buying your mats instantly, you'll end up waiting weeks at a time for them to grow.