Do you want instanced housing?

[DPZ2]

the differing voices, like first meeting the demand, second apartments need to be better if that's the system that is going to meet the demand or alternatively not apartments but like "x y z game" which have obvious feature sets you can reference.

Do you think that all of the threads would close down if SE announced the "we will meet demand" or "we will expand apartments to be multi-level/multi-room in the 8.0 patch"?

[Why 8.0, you ask? The housing system isn't limited because of programming. It's limited because of hardware in a data center. With 1 million active players, I forsee a major hardware purchase]

[Shougun]

Do you think that all of the threads would close down if SE announced the "we will meet demand" or "we will expand apartments to be multi-level/multi-room in the 8.0 patch"?

Both at the same time? Absolutely massive damage to all these threads.

You can never stop people from complaining about everything, look at our professional lord and savior Titanman.. lol.

In fact if they did both it would probably be Titanman who resurrects all these threads xD....

It's important that demand is met and then the housing features that are meeting that demand are expanded though, otherwise you'll have less demand threads but more like "thanks for the left overs" threads. Or alternatively you don't meet the demand and it's just "great more housing bandaids". Both would need to be fixed (and both is the primary complaint everyone has). If they made apartments meet the demand but planned to expand them later I'd probably suggest they say that, to 'reduce' the amount of "thanks for the crumbs" type posts (but maybe not when, except for something like "not earlier than").

Personally I want more from instanced housing systems, but I almost always expand on that.. (hence why I reference Azim Steppe, Amaurot, etc). I probably wouldn't create a thread if both of those were fixed though. Just feel like "aw shucks, would have been cool if they gave us more power". So I do usually come with a few more bullets/desires than the general comment.

[Why 8.0, you ask? The housing system isn't limited because of programming. It's limited because of hardware in a data center. With 1 million active players, I forsee a major hardware purchase]

It would help if they announced their timeline, if they wanted people to sort of self squash the discontent but it would obviously be a huge 'oof' if by 8.0 they couldn't deliver (even if it was because of COVID 3.0). So that'd be up to them if they're up to the self imposed challenge. This doesn't obligate people to be happy, and shouldn't be seen like "hey I told you I'd fix it in 2 years, shut your mouth!", but it might help them at least air their unhappiness less.

Tentatively I see Island Sanctuary being able to help calm /some/ people's desires, depending on how far they want to go with it (like in this thread I discussed pre-fab inn room / house environments to further close gaps) and I'd probably be fine with that personally (but I know not everyone will accept that as 'housing' even if they like it for other reasons). Perhaps on a larger timeline it may become instanced housing (which would make even more happy). Also if it's far enough out, my mind is "I just hope you're making another MMO and build the system up properly that time". As long ago I posted not entirely sure FFXIV could do it, but because I just thought the system was awful and shouldn't be used again without serious modifications at least (for 'next time'). With Island Sanctuary I feel the gaps could get fairly tight, especially over time (I do not believe at launch it will be 'instanced housing', and am not part of that hype crew.. though I am hyped).

[Knot_D]

Oh, I didn't realize Lost Ark had housing. :^)

Not Skiros here mind you

[Erinellza]

Yes! ESO has an amazing instanced housing system, we can collect many different instances scattered around the world. Collecting housing instances is the only reason why I still play that game! I have 2 houses in XIV (personal and solo FC) but I would trade both for instanced housing in a heartbeat! We don't even need dozens of options like in ESO, just give me ONE! XIV neighborhoods are actually ghost towns and my wards are full of boring empty yards and/or ugly decorations. Give me my instance where people can't ruin the view!

[Jojoya]

So, players, what specific features can you all agree on for an entirely new housing system that may take up to 3 years to create? And are you willing to commit to the game for that long to get it?

It is impossible to get all players to agree on anything. There are too many varieties of opinion.

As for not seeing more specifics on what players are looking for, what else do you expect when you're sitting in a General Discussion topic instead of going back through the years of feedback in the Housing subforum, including the very long Housing Features Request thread?

[Fyrebrand]

Yes, we absolutely need instanced housing. Until we have it, the current system is a complete joke and an utter waste of time and resources. I completely resent every housing item I get from Retainer ventures, or as quest and holiday event rewards, because they are basically a slap in the face. When you have a major system in your game that only a fraction of players can participate in, you have done a poor job and need to rethink the whole system.

As things are now, I don't even WANT a house in the current system even if I could get one, because it just gets taken away if I take a break from the game for 45 days (not a long time, by the way). I see so many people quoting Yoshi-P when he said that it's cool if people want to take a break from FFXIV, but in practice that's not true at all if you own a personal house. If you dare take a break from FFXIV, they destroy your home and keep the millions of gil, and all the effort you put into it is thrown in the trash.

The current houses and wards don't need to be done away with, of course. People worked hard on those, they don't deserve to have the feature removed. But you can add instanced housing as an option for people who don't necessarily care about the "neighborhood" aspect of it. Heck, it would probably reduce demand for houses in the actual residential wards somewhat, since people who just want to mess around with the housing feature for themselves won't be bidding on properties.

Also, because instanced housing doesn't take up actual in-game space and real estate, there's not necessarily a need to limit it by physical size. It could possibly be far larger and more elaborate than any housing lot currently available. Hey, it could actually be a huge instanced neighborhood that you can develop similar to Doman Restoration, but you also have your own personal house within it. Imagine not just a garden, but a whole farm where you employ NPCs to tend to it. And a shopping district, or whatever else you want. If we can get really crazy, perhaps it's even like Doman Restoration in that the whole area outside of your actual home is public space, just that each player sees a bit different version of it based on how they've developed and customized it on their end. You'd just have one segment in the middle that is designated as "player house," and each player sees what they personally built there, too. Ideally, you can have one of these going for each city-state. I know I've got my head in the clouds a bit now, but the point is, instanced housing can be ANYTHING, not just a house.

[Reinha]

I want the game to have instanced housing but I don't want an instanced house unless it is exactly like a neighborhood house and can't be demolished.

An instanced house could be an imagined place you access through an NPC/Aetheryte like how extreme and savage fights are exaggerated versions of the real thing. These "dream" houses should come in 3 different sizes and in the 5 different regions' backgrounds (lighting, terrain, scenery and details), have the same prices and item limits as neighborhood houses and be upgradeable/downgradeable for the same price as a relocation. You should be able to decide if you want everyone to be able to visit, only friends or no one, like adventurer plate settings.

They could allow people to own an apartment, an instanced house and a private neighborhood house, but restrict the neighborhood wards more so that fc's will always have access to housing.

[eksynn]

the thought was nice. having neighbours who'd all visit each other and have fun barbecue parties. but that never happens. at best, everyone just hands out at the entrance or the beach or elsewhere.
i second instanced housing.

[SenorPatty]

Putting my vote here for instanced housing. Various size/ expanding rooms, gardening, basically all the stuff the current physical houses have.

[Vrankyl]

Sorry, I just have not read that. I read "make it like Wildstar", "<mumble> Garrisons", and the like. I hear "get rid of neighborhoods", "ESO has a great housing system", "GW2 ... yada yada". "Do what I want NOW!!!"

What I do not read is (1) "Create an instance with a house and yard with some form of nice background" (2) Allow me to invite players, but don't make it like today, where it's all-or-nothing (3) let me add 3,000 items in a 'large' house or apartment.

What I do not read is "Keep the current system but invest the time and money to create an entirely separate system [built to these specifications] to accomplish this and, by the by, I'm willing to stay subscribed and wait for this on the release of the 8.0 expansion if you tell me that's your end-goal".

So, players, what specific features can you all agree on for an entirely new housing system that may take up to 3 years to create? And are you willing to commit to the game for that long to get it?

As another poster stated, referencing other games for ideas is not a bad thing at all. In fact it shows a working system with things people clearly like in it and avoids having to write a massive dissertation that is more likely to be mistranslated by the Community Team relaying it to the Devs. Where as simply saying hey these games have what we want, the Devs can then take that list and do their research and figure out what from those games can be developed inside of FF14's engine. Especially since several games have gotten housing exactly right. Everquest 2, Wildstar, Rift, and ESO to name a few. And the latter three have a way of moving furniture that almost anyone doing decorating in FF14 would kill for.