The Case for Instanced Housing

[kaynide]

And the devs have gone on record saying that they made housing difficult to get by design. The whole "sense of accomplishment" and "showing off your homes" memes originated from these comments, way back when.

Not being snippy at you, but this is part of the problem I feel.

While I agree in principle that getting housing should be difficult in order for it to be an accomplishment, all we really did to get our 6 or so houses in our FC was be in the right place at the right time. I did nothing special to get mine and believe any sense of superiority derived from having a house vs not having is artificial. It just so happened I was at home on a day off when something opened up.

[Eldevern]

...

It is easy since I do actually know both how 3D and programming work.

And I perfectly understand what they can reasonably do and what they can't. They can do an overhaul that is somehow an upgrade of apartements (and that's what I'm talking about). BUT I don't expect (neither ask) they do evolutive housing since, this time, it would require far more work.

The funny thing from my side is this worth that ends to lead to an empty dormitory city in many if not most wards. Many people are disppointed even after getting a house but they are to afraid too lose it. Then I understand SE behavior at some point but I see many players who have left the game despite they had a house. Then it doesn't keep that many people subscribing.

[LaylaTsarra]

They've talked about upgrading apartments to small, medium and large. If anything instanced is coming I would suspect this is in the cards. Reworking the housing wards isn't going to happen. It would make too many people unhappy including myself but that possibly is negligible in my opinion.

Coupling workshops to GC should be something they could work on in my view. With respect to gardening dunno that seems to be a tough nut to crack given they could have given us that with current FC rooms and apartments.

[Ilyrian]

I don't think there is (or ever will be) an argument against instanced housing if the goal is to get everyone a house.

[EaMett]

It is easy since I do actually know both how 3D and programming work.

And I perfectly understand what they can reasonably do and what they can't. They can do an overhaul that is somehow an upgrade of apartements (and that's what I'm talking about). BUT I don't expect (neither ask) they do evolutive housing since, this time, it would require far more work.

The funny thing from my side is this worth that ends to lead to an empty dormitory city in many if not most wards. Many people are disppointed even after getting a house but they are to afraid to lose it. Then I understand SE behavior at some point but I see many players who have left the game despite they had a house. Then it doesn't keep that many people subscribing.

Sorting out collision boxes and in some cases adding a few extra assets is not on the same plane as instanced housing, not even close. If you're talking about something like replacing apartment instances with house instances then yeah maybe, but that has it's own issues. Also, the devs had to take it out of their own personal time to make the flying changes because SE had no resources for it. That's pretty telling.

As for the empty wards comment, again, it really depends on where you put the bar (and more importantly where SE does). Where's the value at? Is a busy ward a ward where people are constantly running around? One where you see a neighbor every day? One where you get to interact with a neighbor every week? every other week? Which is it and how do you decide which it should be?

At the end of the day, only SE know what their specs were, and only they know if they were successful.

Not being snippy at you, but this is part of the problem I feel.

While I agree in principle that getting housing should be difficult in order for it to be an accomplishment, all we really did to get our 6 or so houses in our FC was be in the right place at the right time. I did nothing special to get mine and believe any sense of superiority derived from having a house vs not having is artificial. It just so happened I was at home on a day off when something opened up.

Sounds like it's been pretty easy on you then. Most people need to put more effort into it and it takes them quite a while longer.

PS: We've kind of gone astray here. My original post was about how people should focus on demonstrating that instanced housing works better than limited housing rather than demonstrating that instanced housing is a viable idea.

[Eldevern]

...

That's the most realistic approach to make the wider range of people satisfied without requiring too much time, work and money :
Extended apartments with three sizes
Open apartements to FCs
Greenhouse
Workshop

They could make Greenhouse and Workshop on option people can buy in housing areas (apartements buildings).

This is the approach of the stingy but still, it would solve the most part of the availability problems.

...

Except for people who want neeighborood (even if it is overrated in my opinion).

...

Well, you know what Churchill said about statistics, "I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself."

All these are just my opinions and thoughts.
As far as I can see, the housing is technically outdated and designed based on 2010 state-of-art. It is a success while people are buying it but even SE can't be sure if it really keeps people subscribing or not. They... just do the lesser evil, some kind of plaster on a wooden leg.
On one hand, they can keep the game as it is since players are here but on another hand, the game starts to suffer it is technically outdated. To make a brand new game or to overhaul the current one really is a complicated decision to take.
Anyway, to compare with what other games provide... SE will be able to keep things as they are for a while. There's no challenger since BDO and TESO release. New World is not even released it has already lost hype, it means there's nothing but niche games available.

[Stanelis]

The original housing was released in 2.1 and then opened to individuals in 2.38. That doesn't leave much room for design and implementation. Odds are they never left the drawing board with it, or scrapped it from the start because they weren't pleased with the design.
And the devs have gone on record saying that they made housing difficult to get by design. The whole "sense of accomplishment" and "showing off your homes" memes originated from these comments, way back when.

No, Yoshida never went on record to state that the housing was to be difficult to get by design. However, they did state at the beginning that the current housing implemented in FFXIV was originally meant to be for FCs only, hence the "high" acquisition cost (for the days) of the plots (every FC member was supposed to give something to buy a plot). They did state before individual housing was scrapped, and before allowing individuals players to buy FCs housing plots, that the individual ones would have been more affordable. If the intent was to make housing "diificult" to get, then they would have increased the plots cost (due to inflation), which never happened. Also, a very large portion of the game is based on housing, with a very large amount of items being related to housing. It simply makes no sense to state that housing by itself was meant to be exclusive. The only reason it is so is because they opened a housing that was designed for FCs only to individual players, which wasn't the original intent.

I know it very well as I write articles for FFXIV on a website and have been following every interviews since V1.0.

[EaMett]

No, Yoshida never went on record to state that the housing was to be difficult to get by design. However, they did state at the beginning that the current housing implemented in FFXIV was originally meant to be for FCs only, hence the "high" acquisition cost (for the days) of the plots. They did state before individual housing was scrapped, and before allowing individuals players to buy FCs housing plots, that the individual ones would have been more affordable.

I know it very well as I write articles for FFXIV on a website and have been following every interviews since V1.0.

Oh god, I'm getting PTSD from the deja vue here. A couple of years ago I went rummaging for the quote, it took me a couple of days and now I can't remember if it's buried in my history here, on reddit, or discord.

In any event, I can't remember that it was Yoshida, it could've been Yoichi Wada, or a dev blog, or some foreign magazine interview (french maybe?), or from the Yoshida Uncensored books. Something in there. I just remember going through all of them and eventually finding it.
With that said, it was such an unreal pain to get it back then that I would rather walk out of this now and lose the argument than go through that again. For what it's worth it's actually really easy to find threads of people talking about it, the actual source is a real pain though.

The content of the topic being discussed was how the design revolved around limited housing as they wanted the ward system implemented in order to create neighborhoods, facilitate RP, and essentially make it a social feature. The comment on the achievement and gratification aspect of the limited resource was an off hand within that section of text.

[TeraRamis]

I've never felt strongly about owning a house in FFXIV largely because I don't like neighborhoods or - really - neighbors IRL. Instanced housing would suit me a lot better personally - a place for me to hang my hat and get creative, but only to share with a special few trusted friends.

Reclusive people like us exist (and, I would assume, exist in Eorzea, too). Not everyone is a social butterfly eager for that 'dog walker's chat' every time we pass a fellow suburbanite. The game shouldn't treat us as if we are undeserving of an abode simply because we don't want to look at whatever gaudy decorating job that the guy next door has inflicted on his front yard.

Give me a cabin in some pine woods somewhere, or a lone bungalow on the beach, and I will be peachy.

[kaynide]

Sounds like it's been pretty easy on you then. Most people need to put more effort into it and it takes them quite a while longer.

Agreed! We were waiting to pounce on our first house for..maybe a year? And we were ready to get one as soon as housing was a thing. There is no reason for us to have gotten our houses except dumb luck.

Again I don't think anyone's putting any "effort" to getting a house, they're just...getting one because RNG with the timer or buying it from a 3rd party. It's about as much effort as winning a lottery.