A Residence Reborn - Instanced Housing the Right Way

[Arielen]

I would love to have instanced housing and the ability to select where to put my house on a plot. Cool ideas!

[Eoko]

I imagine it's less an issue of money and far more one of time. Creating an Ishgard housing district was primarily adapting the existing housing district code and adding new textures. Creating what you suggest would mean writing completely new code.

You can't just throw money around to make that happen. There's a lot more to it than hiring a couple of extra employees.

Except you absolutely can just throw money at it, and it is completely about just hiring a "couple" extra employees. If you think of the social hub, they are a reflection of the area. This is resource reuse heaven. Steal a undersea bubble from The Ruby Sea, put some local undersea fauna from Costa del Sol. This is not new coding or design. This is using what is already present. The maze? We already have assets for a maze from the valentine's event. Sure, that one is small. But assets do exist. And building the maze itself? Heck, you could use an algorithm just to generate the placement of the hedges. And sure there would still need to be new designs and modeling done. But there are probably thousands of coders and designers out of work right now that would be capable of these things.

With housing, we already have coding for instanced zones, and houses. We already have limitations on size, and placement, and footprints. I would say the biggest feat might be the "backdrops" and even then, they have the backdrops already in place from the wards. Just pick 4 locations from a plot position and place existing foliage around. Heck, auto-generate random houses from standard items to fill space instead of just using foliage. These backgrounds don't have hit boxes or floors to worry about. No entrances/exits to housing or wards. We also already have the ability to relocate a house. And sure, we can't have all our items placed, but that is because the current system doesn't know what size of house you are going to end up moving to. If it was a 1:1 change, they could easily write the code to place everything in the same spot. I mean, the code of where that spot is in relation to the size of the plot is already there too. It's more using what we already have.

But... yeah. Still all about money.

[Eoko]

I don't like the idea of a lottery so much because it's going to be massively unfair. RNG doesn't care how long you've been waiting for a house, or if you really want one or are just entering the lottery on a whim. I can only imagine the upset when people who have been waiting months see a few lucky new players get houses as soon as they hit 50!

I think you might be misconstruing what fairness actually is. A lottery is fair. No one has an advantage. Everyone is on the same chances of obtaining the house. What is massively unfair is people using bots to camp a sign. Having waited 3 years to get a house and losing a lottery is not unfair, it is unlucky. Nor should a game let you have something just because you were around longer. That brand new level 50 player sprout, who managed to collect 3mil gil has just as much right to that house as someone who has been trying to get one since they started the game. Playtime does not entitle you to anything, except subscription rewards.

[LaylaTsarra]

I think you might be misconstruing what fairness actually is. A lottery is fair. No one has an advantage. Everyone is on the same chances of obtaining the house. What is massively unfair is people using bots to camp a sign. Having waited 3 years to get a house and losing a lottery is not unfair, it is unlucky. Nor should a game let you have something just because you were around longer. That brand new level 50 player sprout, who managed to collect 3mil gil has just as much right to that house as someone who has been trying to get one since they started the game. Playtime does not entitle you to anything, except subscription rewards.

Walking up to a placard and putting your name onto a list takes no effort at all. The entire server can easily do that do instead of a 1 in 10 or 1 in 20 chance you have a 1 in 1000 or more. Sorry that doesn't seem like a good idea to me. I'd rather fight it out with people willing to work at getting a house than those who prefer to do nothing.

I'd much rather they simply do away with the timer and have the few house flippers do their thing. They simply do it now anyway with FC purchases so the current system hasn't really stopped them.

[Jojoya]

But... yeah. Still all about money.

No, it isn't. Money doesn't solve everything contrary to what some people think simply because they can buy the consumers goods they want on demand if they have enough money. It doesn't work that way when you're running a business. You don't get to buy what you need on demand. You need to work with what's available.

[Eoko]

I'm sorry, but a business is literally all about money. As a business, if spending a million dollars in one year will theoretically save you 1.5 million in 3 years, that is called an investment. If you are constantly in the red, aka not making money, then you go bankrupt and fail at that business.

No, a giant corporation does not need to work with what they have. In fact, the gaming industry as a whole is downright known for hiring a ton of people while a game is in development and then laying them off when that game is released. SE works in divisions. Division 1 will be working on one game while Division 2 works on another. Staff can and do move between divisions when necessary. And there is nothing stopping them from hiring more staff on a short term contract if doing so will indeed save them money in the long run.

I don't know where your thoughts on businesses comes from, but SE is a massive corporation. They have the foresight and staff to crunch the numbers and determine how to make money. People that work in finance literally deal with numbers all day, every day. If a business does not have the goal of making money it's not a business; it's a service or a non-profit. If spending more money now saves far more money than they would spend over the life of the game, that is something they would consider. The idea that SE is unable to do that if it makes financial sense is ludicrous. When it comes to a business, money does basically solve everything. Your leadership is failing? Replace the leadership. Hello Yoshi P. You need to redo your entire game code while supplying updates for your broken game? Hello 1.0 and ARR. SE has already done this. Their first version of the game was a flop. They hail mary'd into ARR and you can bet they threw more money at it in order to do both things at once. Because the cost of making a game that would last for years would bring in more revenue than they would lose if they just let 1.0 die as a failed game. Plus, SE is somewhat better at treating their staff, so hiring more staff is preferable than forcing who you already have to work ungodly hours.

Is any of this likely? No. We're in a global recession. But, that does not change the fact that when it comes to large corporations their intent is to make money, their duty to their shareholders is money, and they can and do spend money to make money. So, any concept of money not solving everything, in a company that has the ability to hire people to do the tasks, is asinine. The only way money could not solve all their issues is if there was not staff to hire. But coding and graphic design in gaming has far more surplus than demand. So yes, if it saved more money in the long run, money would solve these issues.

[Eoko]

Walking up to a placard and putting your name onto a list takes no effort at all. The entire server can easily do that do instead of a 1 in 10 or 1 in 20 chance you have a 1 in 1000 or more. Sorry that doesn't seem like a good idea to me. I'd rather fight it out with people willing to work at getting a house than those who prefer to do nothing.

I'd much rather they simply do away with the timer and have the few house flippers do their thing. They simply do it now anyway with FC purchases so the current system hasn't really stopped them.

I agree. It takes no effort. But, in fact, buying a normal plot also takes no effort. Why should people have to fight tooth and nail for hours on end for a plot when others can relocate with no hassle, or have to fight against a bot? Is it fair if half the people are using a bot to buy the house and the other half are all doing it themselves? Sure, the bot is illegal, but how are they going to tell if everyone is doing the exact same thing? We already know they won't bring back the old system because it will be abused in a hot minute. If anything they will add further restrictions. Maybe an FC will have to be established for X amount of time and have X rank before they can buy a house. Who knows. Most of it would be solved with better instanced housing because people would just go do those. Give the apartment a deck, and then a larger deck, and then make the Large a bloody penthouse on the top with half the roof as your outside. Hell, even that would be more acceptable than their current layout. And it's not like there aren't apartments and condos that have more than one floor.

But, the current timer is still detrimental to people's health. Confessions of what people have done while trying to fight for a house are crazy. And then there are all the stories of being there for hours and then someone just comes in and relocates and all that time, all that fighting for it, is just gone. You waste your time, your energy, and your joints, for nothing.

So, yeah, if you win it might feel like you earned it. But it's still the luck of the click. And hell, do first come, first serve and cap a lottery at 30 people. Then the odds are still good and it favors they quickest. I'd rather see 200 people or more as a limit. But there are ways to restrict a lottery and still make it reasonable for the serious house hunters.

[Penthea]

So, yeah, if you win it might feel like you earned it. But it's still the luck of the click. And hell, do first come, first serve and cap a lottery at 30 people. Then the odds are still good and it favors they quickest. I'd rather see 200 people or more as a limit. But there are ways to restrict a lottery and still make it reasonable for the serious house hunters.

So you said earlier that lottery means no one has an advantage over another person but with that cap you would automatically be at a disadvantage if you're on a server with a high population because those spots would get filled very fast compared to other servers with lower population. You could have no cap but that would increase the amount of participation so again being on a high population server gives you a disadvantage. Then there's the issue as to when the lottery application window opens. If it opens at a specific time players unable to be online for those times would be at a disadvantage. If the window opens at a random time then those who cannot be online for super long periods of time every day would be at a disadvantage. Sure players could change server to have a better chance at the lottery system, but that usually requires real money so then those with more money irl would be at an advantage...basically lottery isn't as fair as you think.

I completely agree that the placard mechanic is awful and relocation is something that makes it worse, but lottery isn't going to make things better. It would be just swapping one type of crappy rng for a different crappy rng. I don't consider this a good trade.

Housing acquisition can only be considered fair when all players have the exact same chance to get a house regardless of where, when and how much they play, and someone getting a house before them has zero impact on their chances for a house. The only difference would be who gets a house sooner due to gil. For that to happen we would either need an incredibly enormous increase on the amount of wards or a fully fledged instanced housing system.

No, it isn't. Money doesn't solve everything contrary to what some people think simply because they can buy the consumers goods they want on demand if they have enough money. It doesn't work that way when you're running a business. You don't get to buy what you need on demand. You need to work with what's available.

In addition to money SE need time. They often cite server limitations as reasoning for being unable to do certain things. Just throwing money at that issue isn't enough to fix it. Adjusting or changing server architecture is often a very delicate process. We can't even get a glam dresser furnishing due to server limitations and housing is far more complex than that. Yes money can mean more staff but staff need to be both qualified and trained, and then they need the time to do their tasks correctly. On top of that this work would need to be done with minimal impact on the live game.

Furthermore the time and money put into this needs to be considered profitable, and if SE don't think that throwing far more money and time at the housing system is going to result in earning even more money afterwards then they're not going to do it. As much as I love housing the truth is that isn't what draws most people to the game. Most new players seek things like interesting combat, story, mechanics and visual aesthetic. Housing tends to be secondary to all of that, likely because if the rest of the game isn't interesting to play then people aren't going to endure that just to get a house. They would just play a different game instead that also offers housing, and well FFXIV is far from the only mmorpg with housing.

And on top of all of this we have covid. While the game is an online experience, the people who create and maintain the game often need to be on site to do their work. This is especially true when dealing with servers because you have to maintain and adjust both software and hardware. Then there's the fact that security would mean that some work, even if it's software based, absolutely cannot be done remotely. So that makes getting anything done take longer than usual, which means even more money to spend.

Money is only one part of an answer that SE needs to massively improve and change the housing system. It certainly is my hope that more parts of the answer will present themselves to SE in such a way that they would be willing to vastly improve housing, but I'm not expecting it any time soon. So far SE seem determined to hang on to the ward system and covid complicates the entire process of creating and maintaining games.

[Jojoya]

I don't know where your thoughts on businesses comes from,.

I don't know where your thoughts on business come from but it clearly does not come from a position of ever been part of running one.

[Avalon304]

Walking up to a placard and putting your name onto a list takes no effort at all. The entire server can easily do that do instead of a 1 in 10 or 1 in 20 chance you have a 1 in 1000 or more. Sorry that doesn't seem like a good idea to me. I'd rather fight it out with people willing to work at getting a house than those who prefer to do nothing.

I'd much rather they simply do away with the timer and have the few house flippers do their thing. They simply do it now anyway with FC purchases so the current system hasn't really stopped them.

Ive never understood why making housing more accessible is seen as a bad thing. Like genuinely, we should be wanting everyone to have equal access to housing in this game. (Lets leave apratments/fc rooms aside for the moment, because they have their own set of issues that we arent talking about here). But the fact that you would rather just have the timer go away and have it be free for all instead of a lottery confuses me. It confuses me because the FFA style you suggest would have all the same problems that a lottery would have (in that now youre competing against the whole server instead of just the 20-30 dedicated people who can sit around for hours clicking a placard in the hopes of sniping it from the others while praying that no one relocates to it). But what a lottery does is it allows everyone an equal shot at the plot.

Id much rather be able to play the game, and when i see a plot is open, go drop my name in the hat, and then go back to playing the game, rather than having to meticulously scour the wards for when a plot opens or sit at a plot for hours literally not playing the game in hopes of getting a house. (I realize that, being on Mateus, this is particularly unique this server and one or two others, but still).