Housing Roulette was an absolute trash idea.

[kevin_satron]

Nope.

wrong, im right

[IckeDerTyp]

Everyone knew it from the beginning but you know how "hope" works.

Server, servers and more servers - that's the only possible solution if they wanna keep the neighbourhoods intact.

But that costs money and apparently "we can't add more due to serverload", or so they said ages ago.

They've added some wards since then, despite that so we know how much they care about us.

:'D

[Midareyukki]

Everyone knew it from the beginning but you know how "hope" works.

Server, servers and more servers - that's the only possible solution if they wanna keep the neighbourhoods intact.

But that costs money and apparently "we can't add more due to serverload", or so they said ages ago.

They've added some wards since then, despite that so we know how much they care about us.

:'D

...thank you T_T I have a hard time summing things up, but yes, this is what I meant.

Servers cost A LOT (especially since Covid apparently?), and then you add maintenance on top and stuff like that. But that can only do so much.

[Corvus_V]

You're acting like no one has tried which is so far from the truth. Plenty of people have complained about how much instanced housing is needed. You can literally search the threads on here to see it for yourself or go through my post history if you want. I'm in several of them.

The reality is: The devs don't want to do instanced housing. They want the ward system and aren't willing to budge. The ward system is also their way of ensuring people stay subbed via the demo system, as predatory as it is.

That's why we continue to get compromises (IS) or new wards or changes to placard buying instead of instanced housing even when we ask for it. No amount of complaining on our end is going to solve anything if the devs are set on having the system we do.

I disagree. This is a video-game made for consumers. If people can complain to get aesthetic changes, they can do it to get a feature that should've been included given the ridiculous amount of player grief. If this is some intended effect of a vision, then whoever's doing the seeing is a blind sadist. I'm not willing to stop complaining about it or raising awareness for it just because Yoshi P doesn't care enough about the playerbase to make it so housing doesn't suck.

If we were going to get instanced, we would have already or maybe it's some big surprise for 7.0. Who knows. You're right to be angry about the system but we're not to blame for the devs not wanting instanced.

I'm right to be angry, what I'd rather see is people to stop compromising because compromising won't solve the problem. As I've said, I've done the math, if you did the math, they'd have add a ridiculous amount of wards to accommodate people who want larges and mediums. They add like 6 at a time, whilst opening the majority of them to shell FC abuse. Say what you will about how I worded it, but it's objectively short-sighted to say the least.

[Zsolen]

You're not counting Ward 25 (25,26,27,28,29,30)

Ah for some reason I was thinking we had 25 previously.

[Corvus_V]

Many people have proposed instanced housing as a solution to this problem, but I've yet to see anyone satisfactorily explain how outdoor decorative items, a core feature of the housing system, would work in a system like that.

Instanced Housing, so you can spend 50m and buy a large size, 20m on a medium size, or 3m on a small size house on a homestead with an exterior and interior that is the functional equivalent of a plot, with a customizable backdrop for each current zone in the form of a city dwelling, and a wilderness dwelling. i.e) Empyreum house/Coerthas Western house. Lavender Beds House/Haukke Manor. Mists House/Beach House. Goblet House/Forgotten Springs. Shirogane/Yanxia. Wouldn't even have to design a new interior for each zone, just a small exterior area, with an invisible wall akin to a skybox.

Would affect the servers to the same extent Island Sanctuary did, since it'd just be loaded whenever you're there, and you could have entry points in various overworld zones with a short alpha-numeric location code for people to visit (if you allow it.) It'd singlehandedly destroy all value in ward RMT, shell FCs, and housing grief. It'd be an absolutely massive gil-sink. There's literally a million reasons to do it and none not to

If I can own a house, an apartment, an FC apartment, an FC house, and a private island all on one character, I can own an instanced house with 2 zones. If every player is theoretically or allegedly capable of doing this, even with a small, then it exists in a state where this isn't an issue. If "server space" or something is a problem, which is doubtful, then make it so you cant own one in addition to apartments, as they're/would-be functionally the same.

...
Their approach to the current situation, while ultimately still shitty, .. metering demand without creating ghost wards...

You're not saying it's impossible, but some people are.

I understand that this is easier said than done, but I'm not arguing with people who say its impossible because they don't know what they're saying. Yes, it'd be best if it existed concurrently so no one loses anything. What would be the point of going for smalls or mediums in the neighborhood? There wouldn't be, unless you couldn't afford a large. Or maybe you care so strongly about the idea of a neighborhood setting, you end up in a ward full of other people who feel the same way, and it doesn't end up like the ghost towns they are right now whether the plots fill or not. It's taken me over 3 years to see the people who live consecutive to my house whether I do a B&E or wander the ward or stand in my yard. If I'm lucky there's ever like 2 or 3 people near their houses when I look. It's not a neighborhood.

[Zebraoracle]

Wards vs instanced housing was an intentional design choice. It's not that they couldn't make instanced housing -apartments and FC rooms prove that- but that they wanted the open world neighborhood feel.

You have to understand that nine years ago when housing first came about the population was MUCH smaller, gil was much more scarce, and housing was FC only (they didn't open houses to individuals until later.) The ward system was fantastic for that game at that time. The system clearly hasn't aged well but at this point it's too late to change it.

Been playing since 2.1 and I understand wards were a choice. Even then, I don't remember housing wards ever being particularly active, especially considering how dead they are now with a larger population.

[Midareyukki]

I think at this point we should have just necro'd one of the old threads last time we had a housing roulette. Because so much of what's being said here is verbatim what's been said before there.

[Corvus_V]

Been playing since 2.1 and I understand wards were a choice. Even then, I don't remember housing wards ever being particularly active, especially considering how dead they are now with a larger population.

I don't believe anyone who has ever worked on this game has walked through the housing zones in NA.

What's funny is the wards technically had more people in them on average when placard spamming was a thing

I think at this point we should have just necro'd one of the old threads last time we had a housing roulette. Because so much of what's being said here is verbatim what's been said before there.

Big agree. Though it'd be nice if the people who were insistent on housing sucking for everyone just stopped antagonizing everyone for no good reason.

If there were an instanced house megathread or something I'd let this one die because its title isnt the most constructive. Either way, it's not like people are going to go through all the pages, so they're bound to repeat stuff regardless.

[Masekase_Hurricane]

Ah for some reason I was thinking we had 25 previously.

Aye wishful thinking that they would always add them in 5s :P