Do you want instanced housing?

[Eraden]

I am just as much in favor of instanced housing (better apartments and/or instanced houses) as any other form of housing. The problem I see here is that SE and the developers have given us next to no information on what is possible, given any possible limitations with regards to resources and the game code. Thus we have no way of knowing how feasible instanced housing is or, for that matter, how feasible adding more wards is. We just don't know and they won't say a thing. I would like to add on top of all of this, that we need a more robust placement system with x, y AND z axis. Again we have no information on how feasible this is for SE. This is getting really frustrating. Sometimes I wonder how some of you long-timers have managed to stick it out without going Koo Koo.

[Aragon]

Giving people housing doesn't equal death of public hubs or it would have murdered it already with what we do have. Wouldn't neighborhoods just be constantly populated instead of people reporting that their ward is a dead zone and neighbors non-existant?

Again same strawman, the reason it hasn't happened yet is.. because we don't have it yet.. (instanced housing). And two, only a really small fraction of the player base actually own current housing RIGHT NOW im not sure if you picked up on that yet you must of thought everyone had housing or something. But yes i do recall seeing that one hobo on narshaddaa.

[Shougun]

Is the sun hot?

Absolutely, yes, I want instanced housing! In my opinion instanced housing can do almost every single thing better than the ward, by a substantial margin. With the exception that perhaps a ward filled with FC houses might be fairly active, but I don't really care about that personally (but someone might).

The potential gains are astronomical compared to any very small loss, imo. Gameplay wise, I'm sure the cost of instanced housing is a lot of technological advancement and potentially server upkeep,

If everyone could own a house we could have what is essentially a second character to our game- new systems and progression mechanics not being unreasonable because everyone could enjoy it. Handing players trophies and mechanics at regular intervals, starting out small and ending up with this huge space of your own.

Because it would be instanced (more specifically your own space) you could have HUGE creative control improvement, including floating items, removing collision on placement, scaling, skybox, weather, lighting, etc.

...

Even taking a step back it's still extremely powerful, like maybe they didn't give you an entire space to play god but it allowed them to make multiple house locations. Take ESO for example, you can own, -you-, more than 40 houses.... FREAKING FORTY. You can hardly own one in FFXIV. If you want a house you can just aim for it too, you don't have to placard pray, lottery pray, or whatever other praying involved to deal with FFXIV's system. Now some of the houses in ESO are like 15 slots and is a small room lol, which is fine- I like the idea you start out small and can go back later (or if you are a small style person you got that); however, the later houses have if I recall correctly around 800 slots and are HUGE. BDSO has houses in the city itself, like if you owned a corner house directly within Ul'dah- that's freaking cool. Walk out of your room right into the city, that's incredible.

House in Azim Steppe? Yes please! Ul'dah penthouse, looking down on the gil have nots? Hahaha, great. Amaurot? ... OMG... O_O;; Elpis...? STAPH, STAPH, I CAN ONLY GET SO EXCITED! (Although Elpis would be weird for lore reasons lol, maybe it'd have to be an mirage or something...)

Meanwhile, pray and pray and pray to get a house in FFXIV so you can be sorted off into a house location, size, and theme you had to compromise on, in a ward that will likely be dead, with creative restrictions and limited options... It hurts. I do not like FFXIV's housing system, I do not like it with a passion. Get this green eggs and ham away from me lol. Would note though that the objects that FFXIV supplies you with to decorate are pretty cute, there are a lot of charming options. Though also on the same page while some might like the paissa house.. it's an eye sore to others. Again where instanced housing would be the life saver.

In almost every single way measurable a proper instanced house system (using real games as reference examples for the purpose of discussing 'instanced housing') would be FAR FAR FAR superior to whatever FFXIV has going on right now.

Powerful integration, greater scalability for gameplay dispersion, more creative options on basically every front, far less compromising situations ('well I can't get what I want but I guess I'll take this awful location, in this awful theme I don't like, in the size I didn't want, so maybe I can buy the house I wanted later...', potentially even more powerful social tools (not less, as /proven/ by systems that have used instanced housing but also made social systems a core tenant)- instanced systems, again, have the ability to just be plain and substantially better in a myriad of ways with a cost that is often not even such.

"But I can't just stumble upon someone 'from' my house", first technically there are systems that can make that happen (that also utilize instancing / sharding), but the vast majority of feedback I see, and have (given using the housing area every single day for gardening), is that the social element of wards only happen when it's your own FC or when you go out of your way to do it. In both situations instance systems maintain these solutions without issue. The reason ghost towns is a frequent report is because it's true... Except for those people who went out of their way to make it the opposite- which instanced systems could absolutely support in quite a few different ways.

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As a final point you could technically have both a ward and instanced housing system. I would prefer this as I think not removing content that some may like, if possible, is best. Though I strongly imagine most will not care in the slightest, to which I've even seen a number of players here, some with 'larges' state as much, and while I don't suggest making people choose one or the other I imagine if it was a thing the vast majority would bounce from the wards because they don't care for it. To me it seems apparent that for many they wanted the house, the ward system wasn't the important part.

The Tl;dr to have both at once would be allowing a door (or the entire space if we're being very technology advanced) loaded in the island, but that door can also link to the ward, the ward being a physical address for players who want it, but the majority (if not all) housing features are now stored within the island and all island owners can own a house. For those who watched Howel's Moving Castle, the magic door. For those who played FFXI, the flower girl quest for your mog room.

Now I don't think the Island can do this at launch and expecting that would likely lead to disappointment lol, but I feel, especially if the Island content does well, we might be able to make small steps that direction. Starting off with pre-fab inn room (which I think would allow them to add this content fairly quickly, if not already in the launch release), or even house, like space with those features- like the inn rooms do in game, etc, but when possible adding player customizations for those who want it (I imagine some might be happy SE has pre-decorated their space, but obviously this wont be a thing everyone wants- and so adding that customization would still be a goal).

Perhaps starting with apartments are no longer physically limited and you can assign a door / space to that earlier released inn room in the Island, then later they upgrade the system so you can have multi-floors like FFXI, because of 'magic' you could even have this space exist across dimensions just like in the Howel Castle example. Like if they were extremely advanced, and this IS possible (you can see it in games already), you could walk into the room without loading screens but then look out a window and see another space (this would be undoubted an incredible first experience- thinking for example the Kugane inn room, extra fun if it's raining and night in your island but day and clear in kugane at the time). Though having to choose between "no way" and "not that advanced", I'd obviously choose not that advanced as it's mostly just fluff fun lol.

Doing it akin to this (doesn't need to be exactly, obviously) means that 'ward enjoyers' don't need to choose, but those who don't care about the ward wont be in the ward- making the ward more oriented to ward users.

[Azuri]

No, I don't. I enjoy MMO features in my MMOs. Instanced housing isn't one of those.

The problem are the players who just want to "decorate" a house like it's Sims and "let their creative juices flow" (ew). SE should just release an entirely client-side cut-down dev tool that allows you to just decorate a house and render it for Twitter screenshots. And this would leave actual in-game housing for those who want to use a house.

[Stormpeaks]

No thanks. Housing is fine as it is

[Banriikku]

No thanks. Housing is fine as it is

I should make this my sig... a true masterwork >.< thanks

[Raoabolic]

Instance housing vs Wards?

Why not both? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Vahlnir]

Instance housing vs Wards?

Why not both? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That's what a lot of people are pushing for despite what some seem to think, so yeah, that is what I want too. I don't want them to remove the wards. I just want more options for housing.

[Raoabolic]

That's what a lot of people are pushing for despite what some seem to think, so yeah, that is what I want too. I don't want them to remove the wards. I just want more options for housing.

I only said that from a hypothetical standpoint, we are not getting instance housing any time soon. I mean, we are still waiting for that lv 80 blu update among other things. The current dev team has a nasty habit of leaving things half finished or at least feel like a concept rather than something meaningful (Eureka, Blu, Lords of Vermillion, ect.). Because of that I seriously doubt we will get instance housing for a good while. The dark part of my mind thinks that if we were to get instance housing it would be a mogstation "perk" since SE is an indie studio and servers are expensive so said server costs have to come from somewhere... :^)

[Shougun]

I only said that from a hypothetical standpoint, we are not getting instance housing any time soon. I mean, we are still waiting for that lv 80 blu update among other things. The current dev team has a nasty habit of leaving things half finished or at least feel like a concept rather than something meaningful (Eureka, Blu, Lords of Vermillion, ect.). Because of that I seriously doubt we will get instance housing for a good while. The dark part of my mind thinks that if we were to get instance housing it would be a mogstation "perk" since SE is an indie studio and servers are expensive so said server costs have to come from somewhere... :^)

I don't think we will soon, but I do think it wouldn't be unreasonable to ask for them to add some of their prefab housing-like features on top of whatever it already has. Like associating a cabin with an inn room in the game already, or at least having a cabin that has inn room like capabilities. I mean it would be neat if it was seamlessly loaded into the game, but they could shortcut and just link a door in the island to an inn room lol. Island cottage -> Kugane - Inn / Crystarium - Inn / etc. Don't even need to make new prefabs right away .

This is obviously not the decorating capabilities of a full blown house, but it would certainly go quite a ways into giving it housing capabilities all in one neat space (assuming chocobo stable features are also in).

Then improving their apartment system so it can exist for every player (currently does not, there are a lot but technically not 1:1)- to which then they can bind the apartments to the Islands. Then upgrade the apartment system (like second floor, or even balcony which could just grab a skybox / prefab akin to Kugane's inn garden). The last two steps obviously being a bit harder, but you could spread them out so the server and team don't implode on such a large step change at once lol.


Alternatively I hope they're using the new FFXVI and the other game with super cool parkour as a basis for the next FF MMO (like how FFXII helped, some what, make FFXIV), and so while we're still some years off they're going to take all this petrified high quality salt from FFXIV and ensure the next system addresses these issues. Then when there are less players they can more easily do whatever here without the server architecture imploding, assuming that part of the problem is our current system is not very scalable (like if there are less of us maybe even the wards are enough lol). FFXIV is not going to die, even if they did release another MMO in a few years, just like FFXI didn't- just as an aside. But I still don't mind dreaming of the future since there are things here and there that I think will not fit into FFXIV easily but I'd LOVE to see.