Did Island Sanctuary satisfy any reasons you want a house?

[Silvarer]

I'm fine with it in place of a house. I dislike the massive cost of housing anyway and even trying to afford furnishings for just an apartment can be a major pain, so just being able to have a nice island I can go to and run around by myself if I want is much nicer for me personally.

[Packetdancer]

The whole reason I want a house is because the game keeps giving me 2 retainers full of decorations worth yet makes housing one of the most bullshit processes to get and to keep in the game.

As I've said in other threads... I know a lot of people seem to feel strongly that nothing usable on Island Sanctuary should ever be earned anywhere but on Island Sanctuary, but I kind of want exactly the opposite. Namely, I would really like to see SQEX stop giving out housing decorations (especially outdoor housing decorations, which can't be used in apartments) for achievements, rare (EX trial material) crafts, or seasonal events; I think instead, they should give out, like... alternate appearances for Island Sanctuary buildings, or alternate landmarks.

For instance, instead of a cherry tree to put in the yard of your house (which you may not have), give out a permit for a lovely tiny little park with cherry trees and a picnic spread out underneath it that you can put into one of your landmark spots on your sanctuary. Then everyone can use it, since everyone can have a sanctuary.

Some players ask for access to gardening but aren't always specifically stating it's because they want to grow Thavnarian Onions. Growing crops on the island is similar to how we grow in a garden patch (except we don't get to automate the garden patch tending via mammets).

Side note: let me make a garden mammet for my actual house so that if I have a family emergency and can't be on for a couple of days, my Thavnairian onions I'm growing for the FC don't all die.

(Though if I know I have to be gone for a while, I will log on long enough to pick up the garden plot and put it in storage. The fact that crop state is basically metadata a'la dye information on gear, and so putting away a garden plot stores it with all the crops functionally in stasis... that can be a lifesaver at times. But still.)

[Midareyukki]

First, I'll repeat what has been said over and over: Island Sanctuary is not a replacement/substitute for housing.

Just the same, it has a few of the features that players frequently mention when talking about why they want a house (gardening, larger private space, outdoor area, etc.).

With that in mind, we've had a week now to explore Island Sanctuary to see what we can do with it. Has Island Sanctuary satisfied at least part of your reasons for wanting a house?

If so, where did it "hit the spot"?

What does it still lack that you expect to get from a house?

What has been the overall impact on your desire to get a house?

My immediate reaction to it after properly playing it a bit and taking my time was "No but it's a start."

It's not instanced housing, it's nowhere near the same. It's Stardew XIValley. And I say this with as much endearment as I can, it's not meant to come across as insulting. You can tell that it's not meant to be housing. But it does show that we have the infrastructure and the possibility for a robust housing system.

The issue comes with the fact that we already have housing anyway, and I doubt Square will up and revamp the whole thing. Especially since SE insists that they want the current design for housing so we can establish neighbourhood communities with our neighbours. A fantasy which rarely ever happens. You do have neighbours who interact, but it's a rare occurrence, it's not the norm. And we shouldn't be categorizing an entire experience based only "it's possible for this to happen" when it happens so little. I'd say it's more noticeable around venues or in certain datacenters where people are more prone to interacting with one another.

If we had a bit more to Island Sanctuary to the point where it could become an alternative to housing, then we'd be in a better position to answer OP's question. As it stands though, it doesn't.

Everyone I spoke to about this topic and Island Sanctuary said that if Square decided to make FC housing be more like this, it really wouldn't be losing out on much, and it would finally give us airships and submarines that we could directly interact with. And given the way the island is done, it being on a larger scale for FC members to pitch in would be even cooler. It would come at the cost of interacting with other players in the neighborhood, but since we rarely see any of ours in Empyreum, the impact would not be felt.

[Feron]

No. IS has almost nothing to do with housing (which they were clear about even before we knew anything about IS). It's almost like a reskinned Golden Saucer variant: all the minigames serve one purpose with a special currency. The customization, such as it is, offers even less than Garrisons (which came out in 2014).

It's mildly fun content but I wish they had just focused on finding a way to expand the functionality of apartments or committing themselves to instanced housing.

[HeyMcFly]

It was very underwhelming & lacked the actual fun & joy animal crossing or stardew valley have- We'll have to see how Islands are updated to scratch that itch.
The devs need to go play animal crossing & stardew valley & hopefully they'll understand what made those games good

As it stands, It's currently a tom nook simulator (building, spending & grinding but zero customization) that let's you pet animals so it it was fun at 1st because it was new & I assumed once we built more, more fun would unlock but it didn't

It does nothing to scratch the itch of owning a house in ffxiv. The only thing that would scratch it, is instanced housing that you can customize any which way

I'm hesitant about what's to come for island sanctuary- will it be just more content they abandon?

[Seraphor]

Island Sanctuary never had anything to do with housing.
It's basically this expansion's answer to the Doman Reconstruction and Ishgard Restoration, using the 'exploration zone' resources that would have been Eureka/Bozja.

[Mimilu]

I never wanted IS as a house replacement, and I have no idea why some people started painting it as such.

They did try to sell IS as a kind of personal oasis you can work on to unwind with some form of customizable features (just not housing/furnishing ones) and that you can do at your own pace. ┐(´∀｀ )┌

[GeminiReed]

Especially since SE insists that they want the current design for housing so we can establish neighbourhood communities with our neighbours.

When was the last time anybody from Square said anything about this? Google isn't coming up with much besides Yoshi-P apologizing for the lottery disaster with sprinklings of interviews where they talk about making housing (and apartments) more accessible in 2015 and 2017. Seriously if you can point me to any interview or direct communication that insists I'd love to read it. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you're not going to find anything like that in the last 2-3 years.

The issue comes with the fact that we already have housing anyway, and I doubt Square will up and revamp the whole thing.

I've said it before, the ward system is too expensive to scale. Scale it to meet the demand on the popular servers and you'll have empty houses everywhere else. Adding wards requires additional hardware. We know this and Square knows this. The cost of the amount of hardware they'd need would fund a decent sized team (8-10) for a few years. Throwing hardware at the problem only solves it until that additional supply is exhausted.

Building a much more flexible housing system that can scale with the server population allows them to put the hardware where its needed. Square knows this.

Riddle me this: For the love of little faery apples why did they put IS on the housing servers of all places? It's not like those servers had any spare capacity.

If IS was truly meant to be standalone why weren't they partitioned into their own cluster? I would like to think that Square's devops folks aren't that naive. Kinda beggars belief when you consider that XIV is reasonably stable compared to broader industry standards (which puts them head and shoulders above most of the gamesdev niche).

[Raoabolic]

If IS was truly meant to be standalone why weren't they partitioned into their own cluster? I would like to think that Square's devops folks aren't that naive. Kinda beggars belief when you consider that XIV is reasonably stable compared to broader industry standards (which puts them head and shoulders above most of the gamesdev niche).

"■The following issue has been addressed:
・There are cases where the Cross-world Linkshell, PvP team, or fellowship will be disbanded if the owner (Cross-world Linkshell/fellowship: Master, PvP team: Team leader) has no more subscription days on their account and their character is withdrawn."



Yes, I do think their devs are a bit naive. lol

[GeminiReed]

"■The following issue has been addressed:
・There are cases where the Cross-world Linkshell, PvP team, or fellowship will be disbanded if the owner (Cross-world Linkshell/fellowship: Master, PvP team: Team leader) has no more subscription days on their account and their character is withdrawn."



Yes, I do think their devs are a bit naive. lol

False equivalence. That's an oversight and a lack of test coverage. What I'm talking about is a suicidal operational decision.

The dev team that codes and the QA team that tests are not the same team or even skill set that decides what parts of the system lives where. Despite the small indy memes CBIII is not some 8-man team where everybody wears all hats.