Please SE, do something about housing

[Jojoya]

Oh! Please No! Don't! You monster!

It's not unrealistic.

It's definitely unrealistic. There are plenty of players who have stated they don't want housing. Not everyone wants their own space to decorate or cares about intercross gardening. They're perfectly fine going to one of the cities to use a Summoning Bell or Marketboard.

But I doubt those players are the majority. The majority would like to own a house.

The problem this game has is how the active player population is distributed and how housing is designed so that all worlds end up with the same number of wards (and houses). JP players tend to prefer lower population worlds so 5040 houses per world easily serves their majority on all but two JP worlds. Western players tend to prefer high population worlds so the number of houses only serves the majority on 4 EU worlds and 1 NA world. When you factor in the number of houses owned by what are essentially solo player FCs and multi-house owners (grandfathered or otherwise), that probably drops to only 2 EU worlds where the majority is served with those being the new worlds added just before Shadowbringers launch.

The ward system just isn't designed to handle rapidly increasing player populations or large disparities in population distribution. We know something is coming at the end of Ishgard Restoration but we'll have to wait to see if it's just a new housing district or if there's additional changes that will be introduced at the same time.