Genshin Impact has better housing. Suggestion for 5.0 ...

[Dyvid]

They mentioned that bigger apartments would come at the expense of the number of wards we have. It doesn't sound like the current system only needs to be expanded, it would need to be totally replaced.

Well it's a numbers game really. If they can make more medium or large apartments that people would be happy with at the cost of fewer houses, I say go for it.

[Nafreyu]

I'm still in the process of levelling in Genshin Impact, and I know at end game there's the opportunity to link up with others to satisfy that 'mmo feel' of playing with others, and would be more than sufficient for all those soloers out there and how they interact.

Pleased that there is at least an option For housing out there.

While I don't like the Ishgard housing style, i do LOVE the reduced footprint, and more space to use around the side of each of the S, M & L plots. That even the L has a second level to walk up to is fantastic.

I would love to see shorter house designs and smaller footprints being used. I would also like there to be an increase in Apartment and S internal space.

Between M & L, it's not that drastic a difference in size. But betweem S & M that isn't even remotely a halfway point to L. It's freaking huge, and is a huge indicator they need to at least have a much larger lower floor.

[Bladehawk]

Well it's a numbers game really. If they can make more medium or large apartments that people would be happy with at the cost of fewer houses, I say go for it.

So you would be ok with giving up your small personal house/fc house so someone else can upgrade their small apt to a medium sized one? Thats how the numbers game would work out with the current state of things. Not sure less housing for everyone so a few can have bigger housing is the way id like to see things go.

[Jojoya]

So you would be ok with giving up your small personal house/fc house so someone else can upgrade their small apt to a medium sized one? Thats how the numbers game would work out with the current state of things. Not sure less housing for everyone so a few can have bigger housing is the way id like to see things go.

Not certain why you think that would be the case. As far as I know, there's been nothing said to indicate changes to the apartment system would cause players to lose their ward houses.

All that YoshiP has said was that the apartment system was not designed to accommodate an expansion of an existing apartment (ie add on a second room to your current apartment). He also said at the time apartments were added that it would be far easier for them to add additional wings to apartment building if there was enough demand than it is for them to add new wards. That demand has never materialized since the current apartments are no better than a FC private chamber (other than no risk of losing the apartment) so no world has ever sold out of apartments.

It seems like it should be possible to add new wings to the apartment buildings that would hold larger apartments (possibly with fewer apartments per wing). A player would probably need to relinquish their current apartment to buy the larger just as we currently need to relinquish to move to a different building.

[Bladehawk]

Not certain why you think that would be the case. As far as I know, there's been nothing said to indicate changes to the apartment system would cause players to lose their ward houses.

During fan fest the question was asked about expanding the size/option of apartments that they told us they were looking into a long while ago. They replied that it was no longer being considered because it would limit the number of housing wards they could offer.

[Nalette]

They mentioned that bigger apartments would come at the expense of the number of wards we have. It doesn't sound like the current system only needs to be expanded, it would need to be totally replaced.

Do you have a source for this? I can't find it anywhere.

[Seleni]

Do you have a source for this? I can't find it anywhere.

I’m not sure about fan fest one, but an email interview with Yoshi P listed similar response. I took the response to be more like it’d take an overhaul of the apartment system to accomplish and they’d rather spend that resource elsewhere.

Link to forum post on the subject of that interview:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ight=Interview

There’s text version linked from the YouTube video description. It links to google docs:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19yU...WT6JCoB2g/view

Text excerpt taken from the doc:

4. While new housing is planned with Ishgard in 6.1, I was wondering if any considerations have been made to enhancing apartments as well? For example, spending some gil or completing a quest to increase the size of the apartment.



Naoki Yoshida:
At least up through 6.1 we don’t have any specific plans to share on this topic. When it comes to apartments, memory allocation and other factors are designed utilizing the number of objects in small houses, so if we start making apartments with varying sizes, we will need to reassess the fundamental systems.

This is not to say that we won’t be doing something like this in the future, but there are other tasks of higher priority for housing, so we’re working on those first. This is because it’s of higher priority to provide more available plots of land to the players.

[Jojoya]

During fan fest the question was asked about expanding the size/option of apartments that they told us they were looking into a long while ago. They replied that it was no longer being considered because it would limit the number of housing wards they could offer.

Which would not mean taking houses away from players that have them, it just means not adding more.

Add in apartments with house sized interior options and you'll see a lot of players switching to them because they hate having a Paissa house for a neighbor or don't want to worry about demolition. That would free up existing houses for those who actually like the wards.

I’m not sure about fan fest one, but an email interview with Yoshi P listed similar response. I took the response to be more like it’d take an overhaul of the apartment system to accomplish and they’d rather spend that resource elsewhere.

I'd agree that it sounds like he's saying they'd rather put dev resources into wards instead of into apartments since houses are more popular.

What he seems to be overlooking is that players mainly dislike the apartments because of the small size and want bigger apartments. Even most house owners are unhappy with the wards themselves because the wards are usually empty (though they're relatively happy with their larger instanced house interiors).

When do I see players in the ward? When I'm at my FC house and other members are hanging out there (sometimes with their friends). Am I seeing them away from the FC house and out in the ward? Very rarely (and that's always at the Dappled Stalls MB).

What they need to be doing is combining the best feature from both systems, which is the large instanced interior and making more of that available to players. Keep in mind that instanced housing doesn't have to be all interior. It can include exterior areas (like so many other MMOs using instanced housing) though it would mean changing how exterior fixtures work.

Imagine having a Blank Exterior Wall equivalent to the Blank Partitiion wall that is cottage, house or mansion shaped with an opening for a Door Partition, the window fixtures change to work like imitation windows, etc. You apply the exterior skin of your choice to the wall, add in the door partition of your choice and then you can walk directly into your house interior - no loading portal.

If the only instanced housing you're familiar with is what's in this game, go to YouTube and search "Wildstar Housing", "ESO Housing" or "RIFT Dimensions". That's all instanced housing and (art aesthetic tastes aside) it puts the housing in this game to shame.

[Seleni]

What they need to be doing is combining the best feature from both systems, which is the large instanced interior and making more of that available to players. Keep in mind that instanced housing doesn't have to be all interior. It can include exterior areas (like so many other MMOs using instanced housing) though it would mean changing how exterior fixtures work.

I’m not sure that’d be sufficient though. A lot of people also cited gardening (specifically crossbreeding) and house-sharing as the reason why they never bothered with apartments. ..Some referred to neighborhood as reasoning too.

Imagine having a Blank Exterior Wall equivalent to the Blank Partitiion wall that is cottage, house or mansion shaped with an opening for a Door Partition, the window fixtures change to work like imitation windows, etc. You apply the exterior skin of your choice to the wall, add in the door partition of your choice and then you can walk directly into your house interior - no loading portal.

If the only instanced housing you're familiar with is what's in this game, go to YouTube and search "Wildstar Housing", "ESO Housing" or "RIFT Dimensions". That's all instanced housing and (art aesthetic tastes aside) it puts the housing in this game to shame.

I’m not doubting that instanced housing with exterior is technically feasible, at least in other games. However, for one reason or another, FFXIV opted not to take that route when they decided to provide personal housing, opting instead to open up ward houses to individuals. And they’d stuck with that stance throughout the years.

Also, if they can’t easily provide multiple apartment sizes, I think a full instanced housing (exterior + interior) is probably even less likely, as that require even more system resources to run.

[Jojoya]

I’m not sure that’d be sufficient though. A lot of people also cited gardening (specifically crossbreeding) and house-sharing as the reason why they never bothered with apartments. ..Some referred to neighborhood as reasoning too.

Yet the majority of current house owners don't garden in general or crossbreed specifically. They lose interest once they realize that there's mandatory daily maintenance for anything with a 48+ hour grow time and the RNG involved in the more desirable gardening items (will I even get a seed 5-7 days later? will it even be the seed I want or will it be a seed only useful as 1 gil vendor trash ?). There's no use doing it (outside of shards or the occasional Voidrake/Althyk Lavender) if you are not logging in daily because what you plant will end up dying.

A tour of the wards show the large number of houses without a garden plot even placed or if it's placed it's empty. When there is one is use, it's generally for shards, Krakka Roots and other things that are easily grown in flowerpots inside a house. It's a relative handful of houses that are actively crossbreeding.

Add in instanced housing that includes interiors the size of large houses and a lot of those with ward houses would happily make the switch if for no other reason than they won't have to worry about demolition. That would free up houses in the wards for those few players who will actually do the gardening and crossbreeding.

As for house sharing, think about why players want to do it. Many are doing it because they can't get a house of their own, they take breaks from the game so would be constantly losing a house to demolition, or they don't care about owning a house but do want to garden and their friend will let them garden at their house.

There's also no technical reason that precludes instanced housing from being shared. It was a design choice by SE. Other MMOs with instanced housing allow sharing. It's rather surprising that SE didn't allow it with apartments unless it was because apartments were built off the FC private chambers backbone (makes sense not to share those since FC members already share the house). Or perhaps they did it as one of their usual attempts to hinder the trading of housing furnishings that have been binded to a character.

Finally on the subject of neighborhoods, what neighborhoods? Neighborhoods are the people, not the houses. I'm not in a neighborhood when I almost never encounter another player in the ward. If all someone is looking for vacant houses to fill in a backdrop around their own house, that can be accomplished by creating such backdrops just as there are other backdrops in the game filling in vistas (please SE, no Paissa houses on backdrops).

And again those who really want those ward houses would still have the option to buy one over buying instanced housing.