6 New wards Added to All housing districTs PER WORLD!

[VerdeLuck]

Thats been housing since its released, the fundamental problem with it is that it can only ever grow linearly with the wards they physically add.
The system flat out isn't designed to scale with the player base, so anything they do involving throwing more wards is just going to be a temporary bandaid at most.

They need to focus on scalable solutions, like having apartments that go up to the size of a large with an outdoor area/patio for furniture, or even having individual houses in their own unique instances, say on some sort of island that is also a sancutary of sorts.

The new wards seem to be designed to scale with the player base but they forget a couple things. Some players have amassed incredibly large amounts of gil that they physically cannot spend, and there's no mechanism to keep players from making a new alt or service account, and transferring 50 million gil over to get another house. So, any excess housing they leave to give space for player growth will get snapped up by those players who just want to amass as much as possible, and when the player base grows to what it was projected to, that housing will not be there for the new players.
It's pretty incredible how the game ended up being a microcosm of the real world, where property and money are funneled to the top and the situation becomes pretty unbearable after a while without any kind of intervention or mechanism to stop it.

[Nepentha]

It should in this instance, due to a limited ressource, and it would be the right thing to do, those affected should even be able to understand such, after all this is a videogame, and if housing mean everything, then you clearly are playing the wrong game for it entirely.

That's the right thing to you.

To me the right thing is to fix the system to allow for everyone to get a house. Not take away what people already have.

[Amarande]

People don't tend to enjoy constantly being in large groups. They prefer to be in smaller groups with like-minded individuals who have similar interests. They like to truly get to know the others they play with instead of being near anonymous names lost in a sea of other near anonymous names. Occasionally they will join larger groups for special events but otherwise stay within their clique. Sometimes someone new will appear who fits in with the group and will be invited into it.

That's part of the problem. This particular wrinkle often doesn't just split random jumbles of individuals, it often causes groups of like-minded individuals that might otherwise want to stick together into separate foursomes, in order to maximize access to resources.

What's worse, it's the more casual/social community that tends to be most affected, because that slice of the playerbase is most likely to particularly value non-combat activities like house decoration, and also crafting (which gets direct benefits from having control of a house, especially a FC house because of the Workshop).

This also causes people to leave more readily during content lulls than otherwise.

Say you have 20 people and they break off into fours, you easily get a situation where some people in a group of besties go on break before others, and now instead of a handful of still active people seeing 4/20 or 5/20 in FC and being able to easily do roulettes together, you have everyone seeing 1/4 and depending on outside media to even know if the rest of their buddies are still around. People in dead FCs are much more likely to go on break too these days, especially with demolition being paused more often than not and the queue popping situation being worse than ever during EW lulls.

Twelve help the poor souls who join in or return during such a lull (which seems at first such a smart thing to do, especially after the seven hells that even trying to log in during content-drop peaks has been this expansion).

And there are /many/ out there, enough that if one group isn't your cuppa, you can find one that is.

Part of the trouble is that for most, those groups tend to be unstable. Maybe it's the fault of MMO design itself in 2022's social environment (especially with all the distinct roles that need to be filled to put together a group for battle content; there's probably a good reason why so many "modern" MMOs - especially the Korean offerings - dispense with the trinity in favor of a "everyone is DPS" system with simple individual dodge based mechanics)?

My observation is that large groups that actually stay steady in FFXIV tend to end up being almost exclusively serious raiders (who tend to function - more here than in any other MMO, at that - on a "strictly business" mindset, where personal friendship is even if anything considered a source of trouble).

Smaller groups almost always, even if you love them to death, devolve to the point where you can't even rely on enough people being around to do roulettes or weeklies, again being delivered to the mercy of the (increasingly long) DF queues. More often than not everyone even mostly gives up on FFXIV altogether and primarily plays solo or the currently trending MP titles ...

Either way, there tends to be a heavy disintegratory pressure towards the more mellow parts of the playerbase maintaining community, and the FC house situation is not helping

Right now I'm in a fairly large happy chill FC on my Maduin character, but also FC houses have not yet become available on Dynamis, so we'll see how things hold up once they do.

[Nepentha]

Part of the trouble is that for most, those groups tend to be unstable. Maybe it's the fault of MMO design itself in 2022's social environment (especially with all the distinct roles that need to be filled to put together a group for battle content; there's probably a good reason why so many "modern" MMOs - especially the Korean offerings - dispense with the trinity in favor of a "everyone is DPS" system with simple individual dodge based mechanics)?

My observation is that large groups that actually stay steady in FFXIV tend to end up being almost exclusively serious raiders (who tend to function - more here than in any other MMO, at that - on a "strictly business" mindset, where personal friendship is even if anything considered a source of trouble).

Smaller groups almost always, even if you love them to death, devolve to the point where you can't even rely on enough people being around to do roulettes or weeklies, again being delivered to the mercy of the (increasingly long) DF queues. More often than not everyone even mostly gives up on FFXIV altogether and primarily plays solo or the currently trending MP titles ...

Either way, there tends to be a heavy disintegratory pressure towards the more mellow parts of the playerbase maintaining community, and the FC house situation is not helping

Right now I'm in a fairly large happy chill FC on my Maduin character, but also FC houses have not yet become available on Dynamis, so we'll see how things hold up once they do.

Unstable? That's a really weird observation and seems entirely anecdotal. From my own perspective, the various microcosms I hang out in have been around for literal years. People move in and out of them like the tide, but in general they're fairly stable. Most of the people I know have been around for years. Known each other in other games, even, and made the collective jump to FFXIV.

It may also have to do with the age of the players. My main group are all 30+ in age, most with families and kids and jobs, etc. We're entrenched and comfortable and don't need to be in large FC groups to function and get what we want out of the game. Most of us are in different FCs, different servers. But it doesn't seem to affect gameplay. We just tell each other where to gather for X thing and people inevitably show up for it.

Methinks you're swimming against the tide, and it's coloring your perceptions.

[Jojoya]

That's part of the problem. This particular wrinkle often doesn't just split random jumbles of individuals, it often causes groups of like-minded individuals that might otherwise want to stick together into separate foursomes, in order to maximize access to resources.

If they end up splitting up, they're not as like-minded as you want to think. And I would be interested in hearing what you feel are those so-important resources that would cause a group to break up.

What's worse, it's the more casual/social community that tends to be most affected, because that slice of the playerbase is most likely to particularly value non-combat activities like house decoration, and also crafting (which gets direct benefits from having control of a house, especially a FC house because of the Workshop).

No one needs to be part of a large group to participate in any of those activities, nor would they receive any greater benefit from those activities by being in a larger group.

As for the workshop, there's less benefit to having one compared to the past because the solo players operating workshop farms have saturated the market with workshop products. That's not a problem of large groups breaking up into smaller groups. That's a problem of solo players wanting to gil farm and picking workshops as their method.

Also, player crafting is independent of the workshop and receives no benefit from access to a workshop outside of a tiny number of rare items needed to craft some very niche items.

This also causes people to leave more readily during content lulls than otherwise.

Which is something that YoshiP as the game's Director and Producer actively encourages players to do.

There are still enough players that don't take a break that returning players or newly leveled players will have others to play with.

Say you have 20 people and they break off into fours, you easily get a situation where some people in a group of besties go on break before others, and now instead of a handful of still active people seeing 4/20 or 5/20 in FC and being able to easily do roulettes together, you have everyone seeing 1/4 and depending on outside media to even know if the rest of their buddies are still around. People in dead FCs are much more likely to go on break too these days, especially with demolition being paused more often than not and the queue popping situation being worse than ever during EW lulls.

If they're not in contact with each other outside of game, they were never "besties" in the first place.

Not to mention that needing to go outside of your social circle to do group content is a way to make new friends.

Trying to drag demolition into your social structure argument makes zero sense here, and increased queues during current lulls are always called "the worst ever" by players that quickly forget it was the same in the past lulls.

Twelve help the poor souls who join in or return during such a lull (which seems at first such a smart thing to do, especially after the seven hells that even trying to log in during content-drop peaks has been this expansion).

I guess /eyeroll to this? You're being overly dramatic. There will still be others for returning players or those new to level cap to play with.

Part of the trouble is that for most, those groups tend to be unstable.

My 2 decades of MMO experience has taught that any social group created within a game is unstable. People come and go all the time.

That is normal. The groups that are most stable tend to be the ones that chat a lot of about common interests both in and outside of game instead of relying on each other to get content done.

My observation is that large groups that actually stay steady in FFXIV tend to end up being almost exclusively serious raiders (who tend to function - more here than in any other MMO, at that - on a "strictly business" mindset, where personal friendship is even if anything considered a source of trouble).

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.

HEE HEE HEE

Oh I am rolling on the floor at this one.

You've never been part of serious raiding, have you? Serious raid groups will have just as much turnover and break ups as the casual groups. There absolutely can be just as much if not more drama in a raid group over "business" than there is in a casual social circle over friendship - and the larger the group, the more drama there will be.

A good part of it is because of a "strictly business" mindset - when one part of the group feels they aren't profiting sufficiently, they leave to find greener pastures. Or the group feels someone isn't pulling their weight, dragging the rest down and so that one gets kicked.

After all, it's just business.

Smaller groups almost always, even if you love them to death, devolve to the point where you can't even rely on enough people being around to do roulettes or weeklies,

That's not the point of being in a small FC. The small FC is to socialize, not to run content solely with others in the FC. If there aren't enough online or interested in running a roulette, you go to Duty Finder and let matchmaking fill the group. I've done that far more often than I've run with a full FC group. Yet for the most part, the FC membership remains stable over time despite some taking breaks during content lulls.

Why? Because we don't turn it into a job with a mandatory weekly attendance requirement.


****


Your problem is you have in your mind a specific vision of what you think a FC is supposed to be when that vision doesn't match the reality.

A FC is a social group, not a "only do content with each other on a strictly business basis" group. The latter is a static, not a FC.

And none of this has a bearing on the housing situation. The housing situation is a supply problem because of very high individual demand compared to moderately low group demand. Yet the system was designed with group demand in mind and so it constantly falls short.

As for what happens when FC houses become available on the Dynamis worlds? FCs all get a house with most of the plots left empty for several months.

Other than Seraph, there were barely enough FCs formed in time for the earliest possible entry to fill the larges, let alone all the mediums. Thinking the smalls will fill up any time soon is laughable.

There's a good chance some FC larges will remain available for several weeks since most FCs won't have the needed gil for the purchase price, or wants a medium or small instead.

[Ayan_Calvesse]

Sadly its just setting the stage for "There needs to be more larges/mediums"

[Jojoya]

Sadly its just setting the stage for "There needs to be more larges/mediums"

That stage has always been there. Meeting demand in general numbers will just shift more voices to "I want medium/large, not this small".

Yet another reason why instanced housing would have been better in the first place. Every one could have Mist 5/35 or LB 11/41 if they wanted. There would be no static plot location so no limit on how many can have a specific size/plot.

[Ayan_Calvesse]

That stage has always been there. Meeting demand in general numbers will just shift more voices to "I want medium/large, not this small".

Yet another reason why instanced housing would have been better in the first place. Every one could have Mist 5/35 or LB 11/41 if they wanted. There would be no static plot location so no limit on how many can have a specific size/plot.

If there was instanced housing....there would be no 5/35 or 11/41...unless your talking about everyone getting their own instanced housing ward...
which would be insane.

If everyone had instanced housing; then how would you determine which player decorates the yard...or are you talking about phasing the front yard so you do not even see it unless your in it? in which case the inverse would be true....

[Avoidy]

Yeah, the whole FC housing thing is far more far reaching than people think, or want to think, too.

Between access to workshop/submarines (which you don't get with a personal plot) and also general access to housing, it also actually has the effect of suffocating the growth and thriving of actual FC communities

Agreed. The biggest thing sapping new members from the FC community I'm in right now has been people simply leaving to start solo-FCs. I don't blame them for it; the system rewards people for doing this. FCs have always been a bit lacking from a community aspect in this game, and the FC housing situation seriously exacerbated that. Watch SE do another 4/2 split on the new wards too, in favor of FCs that don't even exist. Yeah, I've made an alt for a solo FC at this point too. I've got zero faith in their ability to do the obvious thing.

It's honestly a shame how guilds in this game are so stripped down and pointless. If you made a linkshell, you could have all your friends in it for socializing. Then just build a solo FC and have complete personal access to buffs when you want them, as you want them. Maybe even a house if you're lucky, and you can actually decorate it and manage the front yard and the gardening side of it and the submarine stuff. With all of this in mind, why wouldn't you just go this route? I'm saying this as someone who's in a small community FC; I'm not trying to hate on people who enjoy this stuff. I enjoy this stuff too. I'm just exasperated, because for most players there's no tangible reason to join one of these over a linkshell thanks to square giving you a million reasons to make a shell FC and no real reason to join a community FC that's already made. Other games will have like... guild missions, or guild funds getting distributed among your whole guild, or guild wars, or there'll be open world pvp so you won't want to be out there without implied backup, but XIV's FCs have ... what, a message of the day option?? lmao. It's so disappointing.

[Reinha]

My body is ready.

And by my body, I mean the shell FC I have standing by on an alt. I've learned my lesson from Empyreum.

Same here, except I run the fc with my main. I recently upgraded my personal to an Ishgard small and my fc house to a goblet medium next to the swimming pools. Aiming to get an Ishgard medium or any large next. If the new wards are fc only, the chances are better.