Housing Roulette was an absolute trash idea.

[RitsukoSonoda]

Yes, as I said I don't disagree, just explaining one of the reasons why so many people are going for non-smalls right now.

TBH the behavior trends seen on the plot bidding after the roulette system was added just kinda revealed how much of the population wanting a house hasn't been getting one due to smol brain syndrome. I made 2 house purchases before the roulette system was added. The first was ridiculously long ago when I first bought my small plot in Lavender Beds completely uncontested when it opened despite being within eyesight of a marketboard. The second was when Shirogane first opened where I upgraded to a medium also right next to a marketboard uncontested because I chose a ward number that was not likely to see people immediately. I could have had a large to myself at that time if I'd felt inclined though lately the lack of symmetry because of the medium's stairs has been eating at me and making me think I should have gotten a large back then... lol XD

[SassyAssassin]

Yes, as I said I don't disagree, just explaining one of the reasons why so many people are going for non-smalls right now.



Part of the issue is YoshiP had a vision for how he saw housing wards (these populated areas that are active and you always see people running around and being neighbors and whatnot). While a cute/neat vision in and of itself, with no real reason for people to really be outside in the wards outside of running to a marketboard before running back inside or doing something in your yard, this vision was destined to fail because this community ranges from vastly non-social with strangers to hanging out and/or afking in the most convenient locations (which housing wards are not).

Yeah cute in theory definitely but after years of being proven wrong, you’d think he’d get over his vision and actually listen to what the playerbase wants.
I don’t care for neighbours, in fact I’d personally be happier without, game has a lot of social places we can hang out in, there’s no reason to have strangers in your front yard.

The majority of people play with their fc or friends, and getting houses close to eachother or even in the same ward is rather difficult, I’ve never seen any ward where people hang out together or are even online at the same time, its a system that makes no sense, especially in Japan. I remember playing on the JP servers, you’d rarely ever see anyone regardless of time, let alone interact.

It’s time to stop spending resources on daydreams and actually do something that would benefit everyone in the end. Sure leave some wards for those few people that actually care for neighbours, but don’t limit the majority of players for a failed ideal.

[RobynDaBank]

Just going to reiterate that if you just really want to have a house, try out the content for the first time, and aren't fussed about the views and locale too much (not to say it looks awful mind you), check out the Goblet of your server. I'm shocked honestly that there was no one, literally no one bidding on the Smalls around my house (plot 46), mine included.

[Zebraoracle]

Just going to reiterate that if you just really want to have a house, try out the content for the first time, and aren't fussed about the views and locale too much (not to say it looks awful mind you), check out the Goblet of your server. I'm shocked honestly that there was no one, literally no one bidding on the Smalls around my house (plot 46), mine included.

The awful thing is, I explicitly WANT Goblet. It's potentially my favorite district, and the idea I want to implement for RP purposes requires it as well.


I saw in another thread someone say that if SE finally decided to limit housing in some way (like, one per server per account or something) to prevent one person from buying up a ward that Square would lose a bunch of subs from people losing their extra houses. I'm genuinely curious how many people would actually quit over this.

[Nihility]

the problem as I see it is pretty much just... there's like 3 large houses for like 40 small ones. The fact that large houses are literally better too rather than just larger makes it feel even worse.
Once people get in, the bottleneck for moving up is unbelievably tight. getting a small when new wards open seems quite easy since it actually takes a few cycles to sell them and then the new ones from relocations

while the lottery system is surely more fair, there's just something extra souring about bidding on a house and seeing your number for a week then going up to the empty plot and "aww, one off. What a loser you are, don't even want your money it's tainted with your stink of failure"
Then every now and then a winner doesn't claim their house and somehow the thing just goes back up for sale instead of lottery with the other current bidders

[Midareyukki]

Yeah cute in theory definitely but after years of being proven wrong, you’d think he’d get over his vision and actually listen to what the playerbase wants.
I don’t care for neighbours, in fact I’d personally be happier without, game has a lot of social places we can hang out in, there’s no reason to have strangers in your front yard.

The majority of people play with their fc or friends, and getting houses close to eachother or even in the same ward is rather difficult, I’ve never seen any ward where people hang out together or are even online at the same time, its a system that makes no sense, especially in Japan. I remember playing on the JP servers, you’d rarely ever see anyone regardless of time, let alone interact.

It’s time to stop spending resources on daydreams and actually do something that would benefit everyone in the end. Sure leave some wards for those few people that actually care for neighbours, but don’t limit the majority of players for a failed ideal.

I agree with you, Sassy :s The issue is that there -are- a few people in these threads that do want the neighbourhood thing. Even when I point out that it's honestly very rare that that sense of community exists, and it's just as rare for people to interact that often. I myself only ever saw FC interaction once or twice between FC's in all the years I've played. And not for a lack of trying, they just don't really do that.

Problem is... sure, it's lovely, it really is and it can be true that that sentiment is working for those people. I can't tell you if they're a majority or a minority. But regardless? This system is causing issues at a design level. And we could honestly deal with housing in much better ways than what we currently have. It's not that the people who like this are wrong. Rather that this design is getting in the way of people being overall satisfied.

And it's not like we can't have some form of exterior decoration or community interaction. It won't be the same, but it is possible.

In PSO2 you have an instanced room for yourself with a vista for the outside that you can customize. And that vista is a relatively large area with even preset environments.
Now... this works in PSO2 because their technology is literally Star Wars-like, so what you're seeing is a hologram inside a space ship. So naturally, we'd have none of that. BUT we could repurpose the idea and make it work for Eorzean standards. Have the apartment idea that people wanted in another thread, with a view for the outside that we could customize somewhat. FCs would have a larger area, like a proper medium\large house.

For the community bit, we could have a sort of instanced "plaza" or "ward" as well for people to gather around if they wanted to. It wouldn't be the wards, and we'd have to be careful with instance-player limits. This would allow us to explore the ward at will, take pictures and communicate with other house-owners outside our FC. And around the borders and such there'd be houses as fixtures which gave us access to the instanced houses.

I know, I know. It's not the same. It really wouldn't be, and that's unfortunate. I'm not even saying what I'm suggesting is perfect in any way!

But this system also ain't it. Because in order for us to have all this, we're choking availability and how many people can actually get a house.

[Riardon]

The plots are still not enough. This system is still no good. They need to add way more wards to meet with the current demand.
I currently own a house only because I got it before the ticket system. I wanted to move to another plot but couldn't becuse I lost the lottery.
The housing system is a huge problem and gathers negative press articles and frustration among the player base.
They'll have to add way more wards.

[SassyAssassin]

-snippity snipp-

No of course, some wards should be left for those who want to, but if they introduced instanced housing, there would most likely be more than enough plots left to choose from and that way they could also up the nr of larges instead of making wards consist of mainly smalls.

Instanced housing won’t necessarily mean people won’t be social so Yoshi has nothing to fear. Take eso for example (sorry I always give eso as example but in this topic it fits the customisation you mentioned as well), you have instanced housing, but depending on how large your home is, you can fit up to 24 people at once, not only that but you can visit anyone’s home from your party, friends list or guild, yes they won’t be random strangers on the street but hell, you can even do that if you want, we can gather them and take them in our house and yard and pretty much everywhere.





If you go on the eso subreddit you’ll probably still notice (I haven’t checked it in years) that people are actually way way more social with instanced housing than anything you ever see in ffxiv, ironically.
People host weddings, gatherings of any kind, they refurbish and adapt to any occasion and overall…..actually spend time there with other people because the homes feel like homes and not another randomly placed square by an empty street with people you don’t know or care about.

Of course in ffxiv you have the nightclubs but again, that doesn’t depend on wards either, people announce it in world and the nightclubs might have as well been instanced too!

Edit: in those pictures you don’t even see 20% of the entire house. There’s a big inside place, a massive pool, a cave and a beach, I couldn’t fit it all in one picture but you get my point, it has more to offer than an entire ward.

[RitsukoSonoda]

Part of me kind of wishes the housing wards would have NPCs added to them over time in the market/shopping areas that served as that housing zone's versions of the various token/tomestone exchange NPCs located in the various hubs.

[Zebraoracle]

Part of me kind of wishes the housing wards would have NPCs added to them over time in the market/shopping areas that served as that housing zone's versions of the various token/tomestone exchange NPCs located in the various hubs.

I suggested something similar recently. Add an aetheryte plaza and a bunch of convenience NPCs, and don't design your towns so that everything you need is within two seconds walking distance and I'm willing to bet housing wards might become a bit more active... at least had this been done years ago. However, at this point people are too ingrained in the major cities to ever leave them. Limsa and Sharlayan in particular are both extremely convenient, and Gridania is always a popular zone.