Worst housing system in the world

[Jojoya]

i heard someone say this exact same thing copy and paste in 2018 i remember about housing .

You mean when they announced World Visit was being added?

Now 3 years have passed, it would be interesting to find out what the outcome was on the player experience.

How many players ended up transferring worlds just for the sake of getting a house? Among those who transferred just to get a house, was it worth it?

How many players embraced their new world communities and how many choose to become "commuters" to continue playing with their friends on their old worlds (assuming they hadn't changed logical data centers)?

How long did it take for players who transferred to Spriggan and Twintania to feel like they were getting a game experience on par with what they had prior to transfer?

How long did it take for players on Light and Chaos to feel like duty queues and Party Finder normalized after the player population feeding matchmaking was effectively cut in half?

Its pretty much a dead certainty that a similar pattern to what we see on Materia will happen in NA;

* Housing will be locked down for 90 days to start. This will allow all FCs to build up to rank 6, plus deal with the 30 day requirement with enough leeway.
* When it opens it will also be circa 75% of wards FC so that all FCs who want one get preferential access to large/mediums.
* Smalls in the FC wards will initially stay mostly empty, although a few will be taken up by FCs too.
* Eventually, some FC wards will be moved to Personals, but only with smalls or undesirable mediums left.

Plus of course, the one that is always interesting to watch;

* NA could have more than just the one housing primal head into Goblet, although they miss out on the worlds first that ours achieved

I don't know that all of that is a "dead certainty".

I think the only reason why Materia ended up with the 75/25 split was because they choose to implement the same split globally for Empyreum release. By the time the new EU worlds get added in July and the new NA data center/worlds get added in August, the ward split will likely be different from world to world.

I do expect them to keep housing locked for an extended period as you say. They didn't learn from Spriggan/Twintania when it came time to setting up Materia. They will not have learned from Materia when it comes time to set up EU/NA. It doesn't take 90 days to get a FC to rank 6. It takes 90 minutes with just a little advance prep collecting items for Expert Deliveries (been there, done that with my FC).

It's going to be a rocky start for the new EU worlds and new NA data center when there's no incentive to transfer existing characters. Housing stops being an incentive when it's withheld. Most players are after personal housing so there would be no reason to transfer until the week before housing is opened.

[Colt47]

Well, at least we can all be confident that the devs knew what was coming with this patch considering they put housing AND pvp in the same patch. It's sort of like having a truck full of fireworks for a fourth of July Celebration going through California during a forest fire. Everyone knows it's going to explode, so we all just kind of want to see HOW it explodes.

What boggles the mind with the housing release is that this is a carbon copy launch of Shirogane with a lotto system instead of the original system, and the layout of the wards is almost identical. They needed to make the new wards just all medium / large plots for FCs and if they wanted to include smalls, just make those for private buyers because no one who has an FC is going to want to buy the small. It's like getting a consolation prize that also costs 3 million gil minimum and has about twice the space of a standard log cabin in the middle of no where. My three story town house is only big enough for myself and one other person to live in, and it's probably about as big as a small FC house is once floors are installed and you got the loft and whatever.

Just because something was done one way in the past does not mean it should be done again and again when the feedback has been at least clear on the US side of things what people want out of the housing.

[SilverSp]

Well, at least we can all be confident that the devs knew what was coming with this patch considering they put housing AND pvp in the same patch. It's sort of like having a truck full of fireworks for a fourth of July Celebration going through California during a forest fire. Everyone knows it's going to explode, so we all just kind of want to see HOW it explodes.

What boggles the mind with the housing release is that this is a carbon copy launch of Shirogane with a lotto system instead of the original system, and the layout of the wards is almost identical. They needed to make the new wards just all medium / large plots for FCs and if they wanted to include smalls, just make those for private buyers because no one who has an FC is going to want to buy the small. It's like getting a consolation prize that also costs 3 million gil minimum and has about twice the space of a standard log cabin in the middle of no where. My three story town house is only big enough for myself and one other person to live in, and it's probably about as big as a small FC house is once floors are installed and you got the loft and whatever.

Just because something was done one way in the past does not mean it should be done again and again when the feedback has been at least clear on the US side of things what people want out of the housing.

we dont know if they even care at this point to be honest

[Colt47]

As much as I like FFXIV, the housing system feels like it was built originally for the marketing more than for having practical gameplay loops involving housing. FFXI the houses had integral purposes to the game, and they could easily have made it so people could buy a room at the adventurer guilds instead of a house and include all the critical gameplay functions there. They even had a logoff animation in the rooms, where as with housing the beds don't even have a proper function. They definitely care about housing to some degree, or at least care enough to not just burn the entire thing to the ground because that does feel like a viable solution right now. Might make some people angry but if it helps get something better in I'd be for it.

[Jojoya]

As much as I like FFXIV, the housing system feels like it was built originally for the marketing more than for having practical gameplay loops involving housing. FFXI the houses had integral purposes to the game, and they could easily have made it so people could buy a room at the adventurer guilds instead of a house and include all the critical gameplay functions there. They even had a logoff animation in the rooms, where as with housing the beds don't even have a proper function. They definitely care about housing to some degree, or at least care enough to not just burn the entire thing to the ground because that does feel like a viable solution right now. Might make some people angry but if it helps get something better in I'd be for it.

To me if feels like they designed it to be different from housing systems in other games while failing to understand what made housing in those games popular.

The last thing housing needs to be is "integral" to the game design. At that point it becomes a chore to do instead of content to enjoy. It should be 100% optional content so those who don't want to engage with it don't have to.

I agree they care about it to some degree or we'd have the original 5 wards, no subdivisions, FC only. But they're still failing to understand what it is that players want out of housing, and how their current design is creating an artificial demand that locks players who genuinely want access out of the content.

Personally I have no problems with burning the current system to the ground if it was being replaced by something better. The hard part is going to be getting everyone to agree what is better.

[SilverSp]

To me if feels like they designed it to be different from housing systems in other games while failing to understand what made housing in those games popular.

The last thing housing needs to be is "integral" to the game design. At that point it becomes a chore to do instead of content to enjoy. It should be 100% optional content so those who don't want to engage with it don't have to.

I agree they care about it to some degree or we'd have the original 5 wards, no subdivisions, FC only. But they're still failing to understand what it is that players want out of housing, and how their current design is creating an artificial demand that locks players who genuinely want access out of the content.

Personally I have no problems with burning the current system to the ground if it was being replaced by something better. The hard part is going to be getting everyone to agree what is better.

at this point i have a feeling its hardware limitations that wont let them make 100 wards with 200 plots each.

[GeminiReed]

Personally I have no problems with burning the current system to the ground if it was being replaced by something better. The hard part is going to be getting everyone to agree what is better.

Towards the later portion of its life Wildstar introduced a multi-plot concept called Communities where up to five plots could be combined and the Community owner could control who could add their plot. Essentially build your own neighborhood. The advantage for those who crave a sense of community could guarantee a busy neighborhood by selecting like-minded plot holders.

I think a similar concept would cover pretty much all cases. Want to be all alone? No problem. Prefer a small group? Easy enough. Want a full ward? Perhaps.

[Besame]

Towards the later portion of its life Wildstar introduced a multi-plot concept called Communities where up to five plots could be combined and the Community owner could control who could add their plot. Essentially build your own neighborhood. The advantage for those who crave a sense of community could guarantee a busy neighborhood by selecting like-minded plot holders.

I think a similar concept would cover pretty much all cases. Want to be all alone? No problem. Prefer a small group? Easy enough. Want a full ward? Perhaps.

Wildstar housing was pure genius, unfortunately, that genius was not extended to the dungeon creation team or I'd still be playing. I made suggestions in Alpha as did others but they went unheeded.

[Markfresh]

Id like to add to Shibi's list.

* 50% of large/medium plots in FC wards will be taken by FC shells.

[SilverSp]

Id like to add to Shibi's list.

* 50% of large/medium plots in FC wards will be taken by FC shells.

exactly so what happens next ? wait 7 years for that to be fixed then another 21-29 years for added housing