Can we please just have instanced housing already?

[Shougun]

The problem with that is there are so many wards. Put the activities in the wards, and which of the 144 do players choose to go to? There's only so many players online for a world at a time, and they all have something they want to be doing (probably not whatever the housing activity is). If the goal was to make the wards feel populated, the activity ends up failing to do it unless the players all agree to go to the same 2 or 3 wards - and that makes the other wards feel that much emptier.

Getting players to visit the wards really relies on the players who live in those wards so the other players will be present when they are.

I think it would work well 'enough' given some npc bias (like how some FATEs have npc backup), as even having npc run around would greatly help out the ward experience (imo). Would love to see even non-event based activity by the game like sometimes bread being sold, town crier (not always there.. plz.. lol), chocobo wagon, traveling merchant, mini parade, wedding, etc. Also having some like FATEs that require you to talk to the person to start them could help ensure that it only goes when someone is ready for it (/shout going to start X event, if anyone's here come help me ward off the spirits~~!).

Because, imo (lol, I know some disagree- I'm okay with that), the wards are so ... not alive* ... it's a success in terms of activity if even two people are doing the FATE/event. I do believe people that they make stuff happen that's more people, and for them these events would be even better then- since it'd be like 15 people racing their chocobos, playing water games, etc. So I think the perspective that 2 to 4 strangers (or likely more if part of a FC who likes housing) playing together.. is like "mission accomplished". *Personal experience statement, not saying objectively for all people .

I believe using different types of delivery would help too (how it activates, rarity, etc). You've got the start your own event options, going up to NPCs who are offering FATEs or even just being able to talk to an npc and be like "yes I'd like to put a parade on the schedule". Especially a host your own event/fate system could work well I think as then the server would only run them given a predetermined plan and perhaps minimum entry requirements based on type. For example for the parade there could be a donation page pops up and the scale of the parade is based on donations (with like easy, moderate, hard, and where did my gil go tiers- with the last tier notifying the whole server and lasting like a whole week). Having a carnival like darkmoon faire, things like that on cycle could increase in focus periods of time (like X is easy to catch, but Y was a weekend event, and Z is triggered every six months or so by a mega rich FC slapping that gil sink hard).

Perhaps controversially but I've an idea on how to make events better/condensed. . . Have a series of events that are ward competitions (could be player driven votes but that might be frustratingly easy to manipulate, so perhaps more like Ishgard rebuilding competition that act as a minor to large gil sink based on competition)- at the end of this have the winning wards become hub wards for the following events. I say wards just in case there are so many that meet the entry criteria so SE should have leagues (bronze, silver, etc), or if there are so many players on the server SE needs back up wards (like we've instance 1 2 3 system right now), but the system will only go league if people try hard enough and there is enough entering wards.

Now the hub wards will be part of events for a season or so, getting snowball fights and other events during that period that can also be seasonal. Jumping puzzle and such being in their ward for that season. Things like that. So everything would be funneled into like 1-3 wards for the whole server. If either they make the ward not able to win twice in a row or they have a few tiers then you can have 'some' cycling (most rich and active players obviously biasing the events, but hey that also means some nice gil sinks lol).

So I suppose I agree if you're thinking "two randos doesn't count as active" but if it's not a super expensive thing to make then I think it could still be fun to do on SE's side (as it could make two randos doing something together, rather than apart, npc activity for visual flair, and more depending on investment). Like I know this is a terrible comparison in challenge but if someone handed me a warcraft, starcraft, or elder scrolls world editor I could probably make a snowball mini event because it's not that complex in those editors (don't need to worry about localization or being terrified of bugs either in those lol, but just a "if it's as hard as making a quick sheep tag" concept ). Obviously I've no freaking clue how hard it'd be for an mmo and particularly SE's, but just a "if it's easy like that, a few hours to make activity.. could be nice". Talking about simple FATEs and other like/straight forward activities of course (which I imagine are closer to using a company's pre-built editor/scripts), some of the other ideas are obviously going to be quite a bit harder. Like I feel chocobo racing or that seasonal events + house narrowing competition would be much harder but cool if possible.

[WalxAtNite]

Everytime someone brings up instanced housing I’m just reminded that the devs were pretty clear about not wanting housing for everyone.

I think it’s time they added a new housing location because we’re a little short, and have them fix that go awful timer mechanic but other than that things seem to be pretty in line with the design they wanted. (Historically about 25-50% of a server population having access, depending on server pop)

I've heard this from them also, but here's my question:

Why the hell not?

If everyone wants their own housing (and it's pretty clear the majority does want their own housing), then why would SE give us the equivalent of "too bad" instead of making it happen?

Because it'll take people out of the world? There's nobody in it now except the bots. One out of three people I see in the world is a jibberish anyway.

So it stands to reason that if people WANT housing, and if providing that housing won't negatively impact the game or, more importantly, others' experiences in the game...

Why the hell aren't they providing it?

"Square Enix doesn't want to" isn't a good enough rebuttal anymore. They didn't want to do a lot of things that they inevitably did anyway.

This is reminding me so much of the infamous Blizzard "You think you do, but you don't."

[WalxAtNite]

Because, imo (lol, I know some disagree- I'm okay with that), the wards are so ... not alive* ... (skipped a bunch of words) Like I know this is a terrible comparison in challenge but if someone handed me a warcraft, starcraft, or elder scrolls world editor I could probably make a snowball mini event because it's not that complex in those editors (don't need to worry about localization or being terrified of bugs either in those lol, but just a "if it's as hard as making a quick sheep tag" concept ).

Neighborhood snowball fight FTW.

Also, what about block parties? The ward can all get together and cook some food, imbibe, do a couple "suburbia" quests like getting a kitten out of a tree or some such thing. Maybe it can gave DoH/L quests related to cooking new recipes, gathering the ingredients for those recipes, crafting the picnic tables for people to sit on, brewing up some potions that make us "drunk" before we do the jump puzzles for a challenge... the list goes on.

Add an achievement for signing message books, maybe?

Fishers can catch some cool looking fish to stock the new neighborhood pond in each ward. Could even be an achievement for catching the "prize" fish out of said pond, which will get the ever-elusive fishers out AND in the neighborhood.

I could go on and on about ways to create a sense of community if we all had housing available to us. There's so much opportunity.

[TheForce]

I've heard this from them also, but here's my question:

Why the hell not?

If everyone wants their own housing (and it's pretty clear the majority does want their own housing), then why would SE give us the equivalent of "too bad" instead of making it happen?

Because it'll take people out of the world? There's nobody in it now except the bots. One out of three people I see in the world is a jibberish anyway.

So it stands to reason that if people WANT housing, and if providing that housing won't negatively impact the game or, more importantly, others' experiences in the game...

Why the hell aren't they providing it?

"Square Enix doesn't want to" isn't a good enough rebuttal anymore. They didn't want to do a lot of things that they inevitably did anyway.

This is reminding me so much of the infamous Blizzard "You think you do, but you don't."

Please, if you're going to try and craft a convincing argument, stop making hyperbolic generalizations. And this goes for everybody. It hurts your credibility and reveals your confirmation bias.

[FF16Necromancer]

I think it is far past time that we did away with the inefficient and frankly archaic housing system that exists in this game.

The issues with the system, in case they need to be expounded upon for some reason, are not limited to, but include: The limited availability of housing, rewarding of furnishings from seasonal events that people without houses can't even use, the gating of game features behind housing, the issue of people selling their houses despite counter measures, the annoyance of said counter measures, and the conflict between FC and FC and between FCs and individuals all create a tremendous amount of strife and bitterness surrounding the system that are unnecessary.

Permit me to go ahead and counter some common arguments:

1. The neighborhood system fosters a sense of community.

I understand that some people like the feeling of community. Having been in several different FCs and having played since 1.0, I have never personally seen or experienced any sort of collaboration or interaction within a neighborhood. That is not to say such interactions don't happen, but there is no real way to get non-anecdotal data for this, and I would posit they are pretty rare and would further assert they do not outweigh the negative social impacts of the current system.

2. Instancing housing will draw people out of the world, and they still spend all their time in their home instance.


I don't know if you've been in the open world much in this game, but it's more or less dead anyway, and the systems Square implements actively exacerbate this issue. There remain no compelling reasons to spend time in the world itself.

That being said, why sit AFK at your house, which would ostensibly have no market board or other amenities, and would have no content within it other than your garden, your chocobo, and decorating?

3. Implementing such a system would be too resource intensive.

Many of the resources needed for instanced housing are already in use. In addition to housing within the neighborhoods, there are instanced apartments, and there are FC rooms, workshops, etc. all allocated on a house by house or person by person basis. In short, the resource creep would be likely, but it is not as extensive as SE stans like to claim and has already been done by companies with far fewer resources than a small indie company like Square-Enix.

Yeah this will increase their server load but... people are already unsubbing because they didn't get a house today. I think keeping their sub and paying a bit more for servers is better for them but oh well.

[BehindTheFlowers]

I just want the housing system fixed... please.

[Videra]

BuT thE NeIboRhoOD FeEL!

Seriously, this is ridiculous. There is no acceptable excuse for the housing system to be this bad.

[FF16Necromancer]

BuT thE NeIboRhoOD FeEL!

Seriously, this is ridiculous. There is no acceptable excuse for the housing system to be this bad.

Yeah, there really isn't