housing conundrum: there needs to be a better way.

[Reinha]

My strawberry garden and snowy cafe mansion are visible the moment you step into the ward even when I'm not online.

What was that again? I'm online. I don't see your house. I would have to know where your house is and travel to it before I could see it.

I assume you have some kind of visual disability instead of an intellectual one, so here it is again, with bigger letters. Notice how it never mentions you being online, but you being in the ward and me not being online.

Again, RIFT Dimensions had it solved. There was a menu with a search function for houses on the same world. Pick the Dimension you wanted to visit and press the Enter button. You were taken directly to it. The owner did not have to be online for it to be available to visit just as apartment owners don't have to be online for you to visit their apartment.

Ultimately, things are in SE's hands. What are they willing to produce for players? We know what they are capable of doing via both the ward housing and apartments.

This isn't RIFT, this is FFXIV where apartments don't have exteriors and people with apartments still want ward houses. What does have an instanced exterior is the island sanctuary, and people can't visit those unless the owner comes online and goes on their island. The islands one can visit are also limited to those of friends and fc members. One cannot teleport straight to anyone's island. Those are the instanced options they are capable of providing.

[Jojoya]

I assume you have some kind of visual disability instead of an intellectual one, so here it is again, with bigger letters. Notice how it never mentions you being online, but you being in the ward and me not being online.

You said "the ward". I was in "the ward" where my house is. Your houses are still not visible.

That is one of the many problems with the ward system. There is no single ward that all players funnel through. There are currently 300 wards/subdivisions per world. It does no good to have your house visible if other players are not in the same ward.

This isn't RIFT, this is FFXIV where apartments don't have exteriors and people with apartments still want ward houses. What does have an instanced exterior is the island sanctuary, and people can't visit those unless the owner comes online and goes on their island. The islands one can visit are also limited to those of friends and fc members. One cannot teleport straight to anyone's island. Those are the instanced options they are capable of providing.

I know that this is not RIFT. That doesn't mean that the developers who handle housing can't learn from what RIFT and other MMORPGs are able to do and have done better than FFXIV has done.

[Reinha]

You said "the ward". I was in "the ward" where my house is. Your houses are still not visible.

That is one of the many problems with the ward system. There is no single ward that all players funnel through. There are currently 300 wards/subdivisions per world. It does no good to have your house visible if other players are not in the same ward.

I guess my assumption was wrong... It is obvious to any neurotypical person that I was referring to the ward my strawberry garden and snowy cafe mansion are located in. I understand people have unique struggles. If you have trouble visiting other wards, I'm happy to guide you through the process.

Several strangers have found their way to my yard/message book and I have found my way to other people's houses, so the game is functioning properly in that regard.

[Tint]

They are actually delusional, they think future house owners or already settled in house owners will give up their house/give up on the idea of a ward house because of instanced housing, well I cant wait to see that when it does happen, because I am fully certain that it wont

It really depends of the kind of house we will get.

Giving up a small house in a ward which you can't upgrade to get a bigger instanced house? Sure why not?

The island already shows that we can have much more garden furniture in an instance. Which would be another bonus.

Plus there is this big ugly L Chocobo house in the ward of my FC in Ishgard and there are lots of weeb houses around my personal in Limsa which don't fit into the area - reason enough to relocate into an instance >.>

But the island also shows that we can't directly teleport into an instance. You could place the aetherite right in front of it and then enter it through a door like the apartments - but what is with the garden?

Also what if people do give up their small ward houses to get a bigger instanced house? Would the wards die out? Do they have to get merged and people will lose their medium and large houses in the process?


I think wards and instanced houses can't co-exists. Instanced houses have to be crappy in order to keep the wards alive. Increasing the size of apartments a bit would be the easiest solution without having to rework the entire housing system. But of course people want a house for whatever reason while they never even tried to create a nice apartment - which is indeed possible.

[LianaThorne]

That doesn't mean that the developers who handle housing can't learn from what RIFT and other MMORPGs are able to do and have done better than FFXIV has done.

Why are people still thinking they even want to change the housing design that we have? Instead of literally *revamping housing* we got *Island Sanctuary*. Instead of *revamping housing* we got *the lottery system*. Instead of *revamping housing* we're getting *more furniture slots*.

They're actively doing everything other than giving people a better housing system/instanced housing.

At this point, they either literally can't because someone higher up is stopping them/it's not worth it to rip apart the system and put it back together or they simply do not want to and this is what we have to deal with.

Unless they drop a bomb on all of us before 7.0 hits, I don't see copy-cat instanced housing of what we have now or combined ward listings being a thing in the next few years.

[SophiaDL]

I guess my assumption was wrong... It is obvious to any neurotypical person that I was referring to the ward my strawberry garden and snowy cafe mansion are located in. I understand people have unique struggles. If you have trouble visiting other wards, I'm happy to guide you through the process.

Several strangers have found their way to my yard/message book and I have found my way to other people's houses, so the game is functioning properly in that regard.

If you listen to them, there's literally nobody in any housing ward, its actually an empty wasteland, yet off the top of my head, I know quite a few fcs that are very active in their wards, and that's just on top of people randomly visiting houses, leaving messages in the books, or just random interactions from time to time

I'll say it again for the people in the back, instanced housing will not be as good as you think it is.

Being in the middle of absolutely nowhere on your island with a house is not going to be a fun feeling, people will have to go through multiple hoops to even reach that place, if they even care enough to, which most wont, they'd rather chill in Limsa or at their own
In the case that somehow instanced housing makes it to old areas (mist etc), you'll basically have a house in the middle of... absolutely nothing, sure there's the beach, and you'll have your lone house there, and then what ? That's really what you want ? Something completely dead and barren just for the sake of having a house ? Can you imagine a mist ward, but with one house in the middle of it ? Or even if there's "fake" houses, it's just dead, boring, and lonely, there is nothing good about this.

A lot of players are already lonely enough in this game as it is, they dont need instanced housing to make them even more lonely than they already are, there is literally no positives to it, absolutely none.

[Tint]

Being in the middle of absolutely nowhere on your island with a house is not going to be a fun feeling, people will have to go through multiple hoops to even reach that place, if they even care enough to, which most wont, they'd rather chill in Limsa or at their own
In the case that somehow instanced housing makes it to old areas (mist etc), you'll basically have a house in the middle of... absolutely nothing, sure there's the beach, and you'll have your lone house there, and then what ? That's really what you want ? Something completely dead and barren just for the sake of having a house ? Can you imagine a mist ward, but with one house in the middle of it ? Or even if there's "fake" houses, it's just dead, boring, and lonely, there is nothing good about this.

A lot of players are already lonely enough in this game as it is, they dont need instanced housing to make them even more lonely than they already are, there is literally no positives to it, absolutely none.

That I want to be alone is the sole reason I own a house. It's my personal little hub where I can craft, hang out while I wait for content to pop and whatever.

If I would want to be around people I would stay in the main cities.

[SophiaDL]

That I want to be alone is the sole reason I own a house. It's my personal little hub where I can craft, hang out while I wait for content to pop and whatever.

If I would want to be around people I would stay in the main cities.

Then you can use an apartment, no difference. You can craft, hang out and wait for content in an apartment just as much ? What's the difference ?

[Reinha]

That I want to be alone is the sole reason I own a house. It's my personal little hub where I can craft, hang out while I wait for content to pop and whatever.

If I would want to be around people I would stay in the main cities.

You could be alone in your apartment so that can't be the reason you got a house that's subject to auto-demolition and costs more.

[Tint]

Then you can use an apartment, no difference. You can craft, hang out and wait for content in an apartment just as much ? What's the difference ?

I 100% agree.

I bought the house to live there with a good friend - which didn't worked out in the end.

So no, I don't need the house. I was super happy with my apartment. But I was the first person on the server when new wards were added and by sheer luck I got an M house in a very nice spot. So no, I will not give it up. It's nice and cozy and I love it.

But aparments are small and you can't do too much with them. So I do understand that people want to own a house simply because it is bigger. And instanced housing would be a solution for that. Plus the garden space of course which the apartments don't offer.