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[Silverbane]

I'm curious, which server are you on? Because I'll eat my hat if there are individual homes that aren't being bid on anywhere on Aether/Primal/Crystal data centers.

AFAIK it's only small FC lots that are available.
But a solo FC is dead easy to make and get to level 6, if you really want a house.
Didn't quite do a solo FC myself, did an FC with my spouse.
On Migardsormer, with three new characters each, and support from our well-established Fairie characters (who picked up their FC house years ago).
We won the lot two days after the 30 day minimum, three days ago.

My spouse is a heck of a good landscape architect/interior designer, IMO.
I'm very happy with how the new house looks.

[UPDATE: as of 09/20/2022 there is a private small lot available in Shiragani on Midgardsormer]

[Brygd]

Maybe it's coming from my WoW background, but the concept of a "solo" FC is utterly repugnant. MMORPGs are not solo games, they're multiplayer. In FFXIV, free companies should serve as the home to players to coordinate and play together. At least, that's the ideal in my head. Maybe I should start treating FCs like S-corps, a pseudo-corporation you form to lower your taxes and get benefits, not a social commune.

The rampant existence of solo FCs for housing is a symptom that Squeenix should have addressed at least 5 years ago. But I guess they don't have solo FCs in Japan.

[Darthgummibear]

After playing around a bunch with an apartment and FC room, I can honestly say that housing in this game is a complete disaster. I'm not even talking about housing acquisition, because the stupid ward system is bad enough. I'm talking about the actual mechanics of the housing itself. The entire system is so barebones we might as well be limited to hooks like in swtor. Can only rotate on one axis, can't put anything on the ceiling, seriously asinine collision restrictions, hell, you have to jump through hoops just to put a stuffed animal on top of a fish tank.

Having an apartment killed my desire to save up for a house. At this point I honestly think that the only reason there is always so much buzz around housing is that for many it's impossible to acquire. Wanting what you can't get, etc.

[Silverbane]

Maybe it's coming from my WoW background, but the concept of a "solo" FC is utterly repugnant. MMORPGs are not solo games, they're multiplayer.

You're not unjustified in thinking that way, but for better or worse, CBU3 is changing FFXIV to improve the experience of solo players. This includes, for example, making changes to existing dungeons so that solo players can run them using the Duty Support/Trust system, and not have to be like Scarlet O'Hara, always relying "on the kindness of strangers."*

Also for better or worse, a lot QoL features are tied to FCs, such as the buffs and the Company Chest. That latter is a huge deal if you run alts; absent the Company Chest, your alts might as well not be in the same game, because they can't interact with each other. My spouse and I might not have bothered to form an FC on Midgardsormer if this wasn't the case, we're both alt-a-holics.

Given CBU3's demonstrated intent regarding solo players, are solo FCs the best solution or even a good solution to ameliorating the disadvantages that solo players face? Probably not, but as they taught my spouse in Farm Management, "there's nothing as permanent as a temporary fix." A new solution will always face competition from the existing work-arounds, and the existing work-arounds -- by virtue of already existing and being a 'known quantity' -- will always have an unfair advantage.

* I would not be surprised if this was based on market research, but hopefully tempered by the instincts of the CBU3 veterans. I've witnessed up close how marketing, with the best of intentions, can ruin a major product (specifically, the Intel Pentium IV processor).

[Jojoya]

I am not actually sure SE see it as that large a problem. Housing was meant for FCs, people only got them as there was a surplus of them. Their actions in implementing the April ward split and not bothering to balance that per-server as they claimed they would suggests FCs are still high in their mind, with personals an also-ran -- partially solved with island sanctuary.

The "housing is for FCs" excuse can honestly go away at this point. SE stopped making housing solely for FCs as of Patch 2.38, released 8 years ago this month. Clearly houses are for everyone now, though SE has taken a step to reserve houses for FCs via the ward designations.

As for the balancing per server, what servers have a large number of available plots left to be balanced outside of the new worlds where no one is having issue getting a house (though getting a specific plot location may not be possible).

I believe Balmung and Mateus are both sold out now (other than the very rare random opening). Coeurl was down to about 40 available FC plots when I last checked a couple of weeks ago, which might well be the cushion SE is targeting to make certain newer FCs have no problems getting a house when they're ready. I doubt any of the other Crystal worlds are in much better condition.

I have no idea what's going on for Aether and Primal (other than that Midgardsormr discussion in the other thread) but I imagine someone in the housing discords can pull up numbers easily.

If SE is not seeing problems, it's because they're focusing on the JP worlds that don't have even close to the population of the NA and EU worlds. Even once EU gets its next 4 worlds next year (assuming no further delays) their average population per world will still be slightly higher than all the JP worlds except Tonberry NA populations will still be well over 20k players per world once we get our new 8 worlds. To get NA down to JP average population levels, we would need 46 worlds not a mere 32.

They need to be focusing on where the problems are, not where the problems don't exist. I get that the industry supply problems are not helping the matter but trying to pretend everything is fine just because 30% of your customer base isn't affected is madness.

How did you conclude that instanced housing is "the player preferred solution"?
I hope you aren't using the volume level on the forums as your evidence, it's not even a valid sample of the players who read the forums, much less of the entire playerbase.

For a fact, not every player prefers instanced housing. I had that in SWTOR (a house on every planet that allowed it) and I prefer FFXIV's ward system. And the new FFXIV Islands doesn't float my boat.

The Islands don't bother me -- it's SE's game, they can add what they like -- and if SE adds instanced housing, I'll just shrug and continue enjoying what I enjoy. But I personally would rather the devs spent the resources on something else -- like more and better glams. Again, just my personal preference, and the devs are free to do as they wish. (At least we have Summer Sunset Sandals now.)

I like FFXIV for what it has. What it doesn't have that I would like doesn't change that.

I guess something that should be pointed out is that not every instanced housing system is the same. Some games have good instanced housing systems. Some don't.

SWTOR's didn't impress me when I tried the game and got a small taste of it.

RIFT's did. If you have a PC, I highly recommend checking it out because it's a F2P game and you can get access after just a couple of hours of play by doing a quest in a starting zone that gives you a free Dimension and a few housing items that will let you experiment with the control system not to mention the ability to visit other Dimensions set to public viewing. The art aesthetic can leave a bit to be desired but functionally it is superior.

ESO's instanced housing system seems to be similar to RIFT from the videos I've watched. Wildstar had some design differences but also was more or less the same as RIFT and ESO.

The apartments buildings show that an instanced system can be blended with a ward system so the wards would not have to be abandoned. Simply give the instanced house plots an entry point (or multiple entry points) within a ward just as apartments have. Players who want to fight over the always on display ward houses can continue to do that. Those who want their own private house can get that while still needing to return into the ward for marketboard and vendor access to create foot traffic. Unpopular opinion: remove most of the aethernet shards from the wards to force players to move around in the wards to get to where they want to be. That generates foot traffic that brings life to the wards.

Maybe it's coming from my WoW background, but the concept of a "solo" FC is utterly repugnant. MMORPGs are not solo games, they're multiplayer. In FFXIV, free companies should serve as the home to players to coordinate and play together. At least, that's the ideal in my head. Maybe I should start treating FCs like S-corps, a pseudo-corporation you form to lower your taxes and get benefits, not a social commune.

The rampant existence of solo FCs for housing is a symptom that Squeenix should have addressed at least 5 years ago. But I guess they don't have solo FCs in Japan.

FFXIV isn't the traditional western MMO, though. There's a point where you have to shed the WoW mindset (which I happily did after quitting WoW) and adapt to what this game is designed to be.

While FCs aren't intended to be solo player, SE has allowed the possibility. Players take advantage because of some of the crazy restrictions we have, like not being able to send mail to our alts and not being able to get a personal house because there are not enough to go around. Unless SE addresses those issues, solo FCs will continue to exist.

After playing around a bunch with an apartment and FC room, I can honestly say that housing in this game is a complete disaster. I'm not even talking about housing acquisition, because the stupid ward system is bad enough. I'm talking about the actual mechanics of the housing itself. The entire system is so barebones we might as well be limited to hooks like in swtor. Can only rotate on one axis, can't put anything on the ceiling, seriously asinine collision restrictions, hell, you have to jump through hoops just to put a stuffed animal on top of a fish tank.

Having an apartment killed my desire to save up for a house. At this point I honestly think that the only reason there is always so much buzz around housing is that for many it's impossible to acquire. Wanting what you can't get, etc.

As someone who used the hook system in LotRO, I'm really surprised you're calling that comparable functionally. It's not.

Even with the limitations of the system here, it's still far better than games using the hook system. I can put my bed where I want it instead of only on the "large furnshing" hook in the corner far away from the window. I might have to go to extra effort to get it up on a loft but I can still do it in FFXIV. I wasn't able to do anything similar in LotRO.

But as FFXIV compares to LotRO functionally, RIFT compares to FFXIV functionally. SE should learn from RIFT's housing system to see what is possible.