The big housing problem, why it isn't the amount of houses

[ryouma17]

square really needs to find some kind of fix to the housing system, a house went up for sale on my server today for the first time in who knows how long and theres already about 1000 people standing around trying to buy it

[Zer0]

I had a house at one time, only reason I had it was because square just added more plots. Beyond that your best time to buy a plot is when everyone heads to Ishgard.

I'm not a fan of the housing system at all. Why can't FC zones and player zones be different?

[SamSmoot]

Just don't instance like in other games, where you're all alone with your house, unless you group with someone so they can see it.
Keep the neighborhood, but your plot shows your house, unless you select a different one to display via the placard.
With just one ward per development, and each plot having hundreds of owners, you'd have many more players out in the streets.
You can see any house in a plot by selecting it via the placard (with thumbnails), or by grouping with the owner.
To spread things out, less used plots could have their prices reduced to encourage the population to spread out more.

[Enla]

I'm sincerely hoping that the Island Sanctuary will provide instanced housing - because they seem allergic to turning apartments into the solution to this particular problem. I don't need more ward housing. I could legit care less about having a yard or even the sense of 'community' the wards bring. I just want to be able to spend my money and get a large area to build in. Because unfortunately due to SE's refusal to give us access to the Z-Axis when building, people who actually own houses are at an immediate advantage when building due to how the Z-Axis glitches work in this game. I will happily pay a premium for instanced housing that allows me access to a medium or larger. Hell I'd even happily relinquish my small to an FC if that ever happened, because I genuinely am only keeping it because I like building rooms and I'm at a severe disadvantage if I downgrade to an FC room or apartment.

[LianaThorne]

There are still methods by which one person who has sufficient desire to abuse the system can acquire multiple houses on one service account even with the restrictions currently in place.

Literally what I said but okay. You can't have more than 1 personal currently (previous owners before the change was made are not included but I also wasn't referring to them either since it's not current). I also said FCs are a different story, meaning there are work arounds for them. So....

[Arillyn]

I'm at work so can't search for it, but SE had said they have more servers for housing so they can increase availability. But they can't travel currently with the pandemic to get those servers in place. I remember them talking about this last year, but the travel restrictions put a kibosh on it for the time being.

[Ultimatecalibur]

The OP is right. The problem isn't the amount of houses. The problem is actually the price of houses. When the Housing system was first released the prices of the various houses were a much larger gil sink then they are now. It actual took large FCs quite a bit of time to gather the necessary gil purchase a medium or small not to mention large.

Player income has increased to the point where those original high prices are currently insufficient as a gil sink. Reasonably active players can now easily have the money to buy a Large on their own.

What SE actually needs to do is increase the price of plots by at least a factor of 10 and add an additional weekly maintenance fee of 1% the purchase price.

[ForteNightshade]

When they added apartments, they should have given them outdoor patios, even if they were smaller than the outdoor portions of even small houses. Make them large enough to have a small garden and room for a few outdoor furnishings, and that would solve most people's complaints.

Apartments i such wasted potential. They're glorified FC rooms that cost more. It baffles me how they actually believed this would fix the problem. And they're still making excuses not to allow size options.

[DPZ2]

Apartments i such wasted potential. They're glorified FC rooms that cost more. It baffles me how they actually believed this would fix the problem. And they're still making excuses not to allow size options.

Apartment advantages over FC rooms: you get to select the housing area, you get a room even if you never join an FC, the room doesn't go away if the FC blows up. or the FC house gets traded for something bigger when you're offline for two weeks, or you get kicked.

Some people don't require a yard. What makes anyone think they're going to get a mansion-size apartment with a yard and a great view if SE were to implement truly "instanced" housing? I've experienced enough MMOs with 'housing' that was little more than the apartment that is available in FFXIV.

[Enla]

Apartment advantages over FC rooms: you get to select the housing area, you get a room even if you never join an FC, the room doesn't go away if the FC blows up. or the FC house gets traded for something bigger when you're offline for two weeks, or you get kicked.

Some people don't require a yard. What makes anyone think they're going to get a mansion-size apartment with a yard and a great view if SE were to implement truly "instanced" housing? I've experienced enough MMOs with 'housing' that was little more than the apartment that is available in FFXIV.

I'm not sure many people are thinking they'll get a yard or even a view? At least I've never heard anyone actually express that in most of my time scouring these topics. I personally just want the ability to pay to own the interior of a small or medium house, but as an apartment. I'll even happily pay a premium for it. Until SE gives us proper Z-Axis then apartments and FC rooms are always going to be inferior in terms of design potential than actual housing.