Please do something about housing

[Storm0819]

I'll probably get banned for this but this seems to be the only place the devs actually read messages, I'm a new player who would love if it was possible to imagine someday owning a personal house. It is a major gameplay feature that most feel excluded from. I don't know exactly what could be done but there's mainly solutions like instanced housing or reinstating demolition for houses that haven't been used in a very long time. Please do something

[Penthea]

I'll probably get banned for this

Nothing you have said would make you get banned, don't worry

It is a major gameplay feature that most feel excluded from. I don't know exactly what could be done but there's mainly solutions like instanced housing or reinstating demolition for houses that haven't been used in a very long time. Please do something

Unfortunately to create a system that would benefit all players equally would require SE to scrap the ward system and replace it with instanced housing or add an instanced housing system to exist alongside it. It's the best solution but it's also an expensive and time consuming solution.

Something players do ask for a lot is for apartments to be significantly upgraded so that they're actually comparable with houses instead of just being fc rooms with a chocobo stable. This solution is more likely to happen than actual instanced housing because it's only changing things about the current system instead of being a completely new system in of itself. If apartments were improved a lot, it would alleviate a lot of the issues about housing.

SE did plan to add more wards than the ones we just got but because of covid they couldn't add more servers so instead they optimised the current servers to fit more wards. We still got more wards but not as much as was initially intended. From this we can probably expect new wards will come again in the future soonish (?) but I think it will be the end of 5.4 (start of summer 2021) at the earliest.

As for demolition, it will be back one day but we don't know when. It's also a band-aid solution because it doesn't increase the amount of houses in the game. Regardless of whether demolition is on or off there are an enormous amount of players without a house. It cannot and never will satisfy the demand from a high population. And well the placard timer makes demolition feel vastly inferior to getting a house from new wards, which don't have a placard timer due to not being demolished plots.

I'm sorry I can't give you any good news about this other than that new wards will probably come again at some point in the nearish future. If you haven't already get an apartment. It's not a replacement for an actual house but at least you can still have some fun decorating with it.

[OracleLunaFaye]

we can probably expect new wards will come again in the future soonish (?) but I think it will be the end of 5.4 (start of summer 2021) at the earliest.

Just out of curiosity, why do you think new wards would be so late? Obviously SE knows the small number of wards they added are not enough, and also not nearly what they wanted. I was personally hopeful they might be able to add a few more in the December update.

[Catstab]

Just out of curiosity, why do you think new wards would be so late? Obviously SE knows the small number of wards they added are not enough, and also not nearly what they wanted. I was personally hopeful they might be able to add a few more in the December update.

Not that I could tell you what goes on in Penthea's mind - but before this latest housing expansion in October 2020 with patch 5.35, the previous ward expansion was 5.1, October 2019. Prior to that, wards were released in January 2018. So generally speaking, the housing updates are extremely far apart.

That said, the announcement back in August that housing was coming said that physical servers could not be easily moved with travel restrictions - I imagine the quarantine period for their server admins upon return is not tolerable. This implies that they wish to add physical servers for more wards in the near future. How soon might that be possible? It's a tough call, maybe spring 2021, maybe summer. I don't think 5.5 is necessarily a bad guess. I think within 8 months is a fairly safe bet. Beyond that, who can tell?

[DrWho2010]

the addition of more servers to add more housing is entirely dependent on the state of international travel to the US in order for the devs to physically oversee installation. due to how the pandemic is progressing there is no telling when this will be.

[OracleLunaFaye]

the addition of more servers to add more housing is entirely dependent on the state of international travel to the US in order for the devs to physically oversee installation. due to how the pandemic is progressing there is no telling when this will be.

That's true, but only if a dev needs to be there for the install in person rather than virtually. IDK what SE's policies are about server installations, but I can say for certain there are dev ops in the US that can install servers.

[Catstab]

That's true, but only if a dev needs to be there for the install in person rather than virtually. IDK what SE's policies are about server installations, but I can say for certain there are dev ops in the US that can install servers.

They said in August they can't install servers due to 'logistics reasons' so my impression from that is:

-SE US is a localization team only, the server techs and admins are Japanese
-They are unwilling to contract out installation of new servers

So we're waiting for travel restrictions to ease before proceeding, by the sound of things.

[OracleLunaFaye]

So we're waiting for travel restrictions to ease before proceeding, by the sound of things.

Bummer. I certainly don't blame the devs at all for not wanting to travel right now. Asside from the personal dangers, it's probably at the very least a 2 week quarantine when they get home.

Although given the current state of affairs, it would not be unreasonable for SE to consider modifying or temporarily suspending their server installation restrictions.

I'm just hoping for better news is all.

[KayRadley]

Apartment.

[Jojoya]

Apartment.

Apartments in their current state don't fix the problem. They're a temporary measure for individual players who would like to have a house but can't get one. They aren't even an option for FCs that lack a house and thus workshop access.

I'm still going to encourage players to at least give apartment a try while they wait but I'm not going to act like they're a long term solution.