Open Letter to SE:Redesign Apartment Interiors & Make Apartments Relocatable to Plots

[Penthea]

Now rewrite those lists to display only what is lacking if a player or FC is without a house and they look much different.

When a person thinks about trying content they think about "what can I get from this?" not "what will I be unable to get?" because frankly the list of what you cannot have is literally infinite. Whereas the list of what you can have is a fixed number.

Also a list that displays only what you cannot have isn't very useful because that doesn't tell you what you can do with the content. How does knowing I can crossbreed with seeds inform me that I can have vendors in my apartment? How does knowing I can't use outdoor furniture inform me that I still have access to a chocobo stable?

It looks like you're venturing into suggesting the use of unhelpful lists to try to make apartments look better than they actually are.

Good god imagine if you looked up the loot table for a boss and all the website did was list what it doesn't drop.

[Luna-M]

Allow apartment do relocation? Why? What would that fix? It would just make it worse and apartment supply would be as bad as housing plots

[Jojoya]

When a person thinks about trying content they think about "what can I get from this?" not "what will I be unable to get?" because frankly the list of what you cannot have is literally infinite. Whereas the list of what you can have is a fixed number.

Also a list that displays only what you cannot have isn't very useful because that doesn't tell you what you can do with the content. How does knowing I can crossbreed with seeds inform me that I can have vendors in my apartment? How does knowing I can't use outdoor furniture inform me that I still have access to a chocobo stable?

It looks like you're venturing into suggesting the use of unhelpful lists to try to make apartments look better than they actually are.

Good god imagine if you looked up the loot table for a boss and all the website did was list what it doesn't drop.

Perhaps you need to go back to reread what I originally quoted from your post. You weren't discussing the benefits of housing in general. You were claiming that players are locked out of many features if they don't own a house.

So I limited my list to that - what a player won't have if they own an apartment instead of a house. It doesn't amount to "many features", only a few.

The real difference is for FCs mostly because apartments aren't even an option for FCs but let's be realistic. Most of the posts hitting the forums right now have nothing to do with players being angry their FC wasn't able to buy a house. They're angry because they couldn't buy a personal house even though an apartment would provide all the features most of them would actively use.

Allow apartment do relocation? Why? What would that fix? It would just make it worse and apartment supply would be as bad as housing plots

It wouldn't impact apartment supply since the apartment would be relinquished when the house was purchased, making it immediately available for another player to purchase. There were already plenty of available apartments on every world even before the additional 2,160 added to every world this week.

But you're right - it doesn't fix anything. The problem is still the supply of houses. Making changes related to relocation doesn't fix the supply.

[Penthea]

Perhaps you need to go back to reread what I originally quoted from your post. You weren't discussing the benefits of housing in general. You were claiming that players are locked out of many features if they don't own a house.

I literally listed a list of benefits and you're trying to tell me I didn't discuss it? Okay. Sure.

So I limited my list to that - what a player won't have if they own an apartment instead of a house. It doesn't amount to "many features", only a few.

And I already told you why this is a silly thing to do but at this point I think you're just doing whatever you can to make apartments appear better than they are.

I had an apartment for a many months before I had a house, and while it's better than nothing it was disappointing.

No one expected something called an "apartment" to be literally the free company private chambers with a chocobo stable. Apparently SE's logic is a private room magically becomes an apartment when it comes with a chocobo stable.

The most disappointing things for me were: no balcony for outdoor decor and gardening, and no tenancy. To a point I can understand the lack of an outdoor space because linking that to an indoor space may not be an easy task due to how differently they work...but tenancy? Come on. I was surprised to see that wasn't a feature. At the time I didn't live with my boyfriend in real life and we just wanted a little living space we could share together, but no. For some reason SE think players won't ever want to share their apartments.

Here we are years later and something as basic as tenancy has still not been introduced.

And before you say "SE probably didn't introduce tenancy to apartments because we haven't run out of apartments" I understand this but this doesn't change that pretty often players want to share their apartment with someone else.

The real difference is for FCs mostly because apartments aren't even an option for FCs but let's be realistic. Most of the posts hitting the forums right now have nothing to do with players being angry their FC wasn't able to buy a house. They're angry because they couldn't buy a personal house even though an apartment would provide all the features most of them would actively use.

Well this does make sense. There are significantly more players than there are fcs. I wouldn't expect the outcry from fcs to be remotely comparable to those looking for a private home.

[Sairys]

And I already told you why this is a silly thing to do but at this point I think you're just doing whatever you can to make apartments appear better than they are.

I had an apartment for a many months before I had a house, and while it's better than nothing it was disappointing.

No one expected something called an "apartment" to be literally the free company private chambers with a chocobo stable. Apparently SE's logic is a private room magically becomes an apartment when it comes with a chocobo stable.

The most disappointing things for me were: no balcony for outdoor decor and gardening, and no tenancy. To a point I can understand the lack of an outdoor space because linking that to an indoor space may not be an easy task due to how differently they work...but tenancy? Come on. I was surprised to see that wasn't a feature. At the time I didn't live with my boyfriend in real life and we just wanted a little living space we could share together, but no. For some reason SE think players won't ever want to share their apartments.

Here we are years later and something as basic as tenancy has still not been introduced.

And before you say "SE probably didn't introduce tenancy to apartments because we haven't run out of apartments" I understand this but this doesn't change that pretty often players want to share their apartment with someone else.



Well this does make sense. There are significantly more players than there are fcs. I wouldn't expect the outcry from fcs to be remotely comparable to those looking for a private home.

Hm, actually the most helpful comparison method in this situation is a table with one axis being housing type and the other being features because the complete list of implemented features is a known thing. Here you go
The more effective method for linear listing would have been to start with apartments/fc rooms as they have the least features, then houses noting "everything in the above plus, then fc houses with a similar note.

I'd also add permanence to the benefit of apartments along with not being tied to an FC over fc chambers. Which is a pretty neat selling point to me, when auto-demo is on it also means your apartment is the only type of housing you can't potentially lose currently.

From an interview a few years back it also seems like the reason we haven't seen upgrades to apartments is that the focus was on making more plots available which... would kinda remove the need for upgrading them? If we get to the point that everyone can reasonably get a plot then apartments are really your entry-level, can't access housing features through other methods, option mostly for players who aren't in an FC (or whose FC doesn't have a house for reasons) and don't have enough gil saved up for an actual house.

[Almagnus1]

A player not getting a personal house is not missing out on "many features" and what little they are missing out on are not game changing in any way. A FC definitely is, which is why SE usually has the personal moratorium when wards are added.

That's one of the things that I liked about LotRO's housing system - the largest houses in that system were dedicated FC (aka kinship) houses (for more info, please see https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Housing ). That might have worked initially... however.... when SE didn't restrict the houses to FC only initially, that change can't be introduced retroactively without causing **A LOT** of problems.