SE if you're going to keep housing the way it is YOU NEED MORE WARDS

[MAJRIS]

Instanced housing, one ward. Every plot is instanced, and you choose what house you want to see and visit via the placard at the entrance, (which has thumbnails)
This way, your place is open to visitors if you want them, without having to form a party like in other MMO's instanced housing.
Your own house always appears in your plot unless you pick another one.

this would be absolute hell to program, considering as layer of code on top of existing wards. impossible to avoid stealth instance hopping when more people want to visit you and one sees your house but someone else sees different person's house.
Not impossible but realistically not seeing it happening.

[Jeeqbit]

this would be absolute hell to program, considering as layer of code on top of existing wards. impossible to avoid stealth instance hopping when more people want to visit you and one sees your house but someone else sees different person's house.
Not impossible but realistically not seeing it happening.

I think it could be done, it's just that it would defeat the point of the ward system. The point of the ward system is so that we can see and visit other people's houses, not just of our friends, but of random strangers. It feels more like a neighborhood.

If they went along with such an idea, they may as well just make it like SWTOR's houses which are entirely isolated in instances.

[Shougun]

this would be absolute hell to program, considering as layer of code on top of existing wards. impossible to avoid stealth instance hopping when more people want to visit you and one sees your house but someone else sees different person's house.
Not impossible but realistically not seeing it happening.

As far as I can recall BDO, ESO, and WoW have systems like this. For BDO it was just seamlessly entering your apartment, like if you imagine a door open in Ul'dah and it was your apartment and you could walk in from the street, but if you wanted you could force via menu options to get to another's. Then ESO was more of an interactable door (not seamless). WoW's wasn't for housing but for their phasing system in general which is used for story and farm content, is seamless (and generally is fine, but can cause issues sometimes).


I think leaving the wards as literal physical addresses would be fine, and just have instance system control the interior / exterior (instance) in a fully dynamic system (like the above games have for the examples mentioned.. of 'if you wanted it you could have it'). At that point I'd also suggest that you could add some seasonal content to housing wards, just to give them a bit more liveliness (and reason why it might be fun for certain people to own a physical address). You could definitely phase each plot, as it is a system that is existing at the present time and has for many years (in other games), but I feel it would create a lot of weird occurrences in the neighborhood and for the people who actually really like that system.. maybe they'd like it less if it was constantly changing.

PERHAPS there is 1 chaotic ward per district, where those are phased, and the rest are static? If people really want it that bad. Could be an npc that sorts them based on popularity, trending, and relevance (friends, players, FCs you interact with regularly, that aren't blacklisted lol). "Best of houses" ward essentially. I'd personally, if I was hitting the wishing well, probably not spend too much time on that thought, unless I was going to use phasing for other things too, and just ensure that there is a solid instanced foundation and that the physical addresses exist for people that find that important.

[Jojoya]

As far as I can recall BDO, ESO, and WoW have systems like this. For BDO it was just seamlessly entering your apartment, like if you imagine a door open in Ul'dah and it was your apartment and you could walk in from the street, but if you wanted you could force via menu options to get to another's. Then ESO was more of an interactable door (not seamless). WoW's wasn't for housing but for their phasing system in general which is used for story and farm content, is seamless (and generally is fine, but can cause issues sometimes).

WoW wouldn't be a good comparison because it has had seamless zone transitions since its inception. You'd only see a loading screen if you were going between zones housed on different world servers (their world servers being more like "continent servers" compared to what a FFXIV would think of as a world). Garrisons took advantage of that seamless zone technology plus the phasing that was introduced back in Wrath.

I haven't played BDO or ESO myself and while I've watched some ESO housing videos, they would always start with the content creator already in the housing instance so I don't know if they also have the seamless transition.

A lot of what we think should be normal/easy to do because of PC gaming experience may not be so easy when it has to be replicated for console. I know some of the weird tricks that are used on consoles to hide the next area loading as a player moves into it I don't know if there's any tricks that would accomplish that for housing when what is displayed will vary by player and their destination. It would be helpful if other players who have played those other games on console could reply with their housing experiences in those games.

[Shougun]

WoW wouldn't be a good comparison because it has had seamless zone transitions since its inception. You'd only see a loading screen if you were going between zones housed on different world servers (their world servers being more like "continent servers" compared to what a FFXIV would think of as a world). Garrisons took advantage of that seamless zone technology plus the phasing that was introduced back in Wrath.

I haven't played BDO or ESO myself and while I've watched some ESO housing videos, they would always start with the content creator already in the housing instance so I don't know if they also have the seamless transition.

A lot of what we think should be normal/easy to do because of PC gaming experience may not be so easy when it has to be replicated for console. I know some of the weird tricks that are used on consoles to hide the next area loading as a player moves into it I don't know if there's any tricks that would accomplish that for housing when what is displayed will vary by player and their destination. It would be helpful if other players who have played those other games on console could reply with their housing experiences in those games.

I don't think WoW should be discounted, also I think there is confusion on whether I think something is possible vs easy. I doubt it's easy, at all. We just know this is technically possible as per three different exhibits (that do function a bit differently).

They said impossible so I just said it really isn't. I'm okay if you want to emphasize it is difficult though. WoW's glamour system required a dedicated third party team over a long period of time lol.

Just to add detail for others:
WoW has phasing which allows a subspace in the zone to act unique to a player or set of players, without loading screen (though they already built the system to be relatively few loading screens).

ESO just has a boat load of instances, you can have an inn door lead to your own space (this is not phasing like WoW).

BDO phases, though I've only seen this through video. Looked cool though, since it was seamless.

Point for the three though is you could set one point to associate to many. Though using phasing in this situation will still make some weird moments like what if your friend and FC share the same spot? Which one loads? If you load your friends house but your friend loads your FC house and then you walk onto their plot but they walk into the FC plot, for a split second your brain is going to go 'What the..?'.

[Khryseis_Astra]

Point for the three though is you could set one point to associate to many. Though using phasing in this situation will still make some weird moments like what if your friend and FC share the same spot? Which one loads? If you load your friends house but your friend loads your FC house and then you walk onto their plot but they walk into the FC plot, for a split second your brain is going to go 'What the..?'.

I’d rather just have my own instance if they make instanced plots, accessed through a directory so I go straight to my own plot. I like to take pix of the outside of my house and the landscape, so I don’t want to see someone else’s house when I go to the placard. Also, what happens if you leave the boundaries of the plot? Like if I’m standing on my fence, or hop over it… Does it immediately go back to cycling through other people’s houses? A big reason people like a lot of the plots they do is for the scenery around them.

Though I will give you this, it would be a good way of dealing with the issue that certain people only want certain plots! But if I was able to get my dream plot that way, and couldn’t actually take screenshots of it (because I wouldn’t be able to zoom out far enough from inside the plot boundaries), I would have a sad… lol

[Shougun]

I’d rather just have my own instance if they make instanced plots, accessed through a directory so I go straight to my own plot. I like to take pix of the outside of my house and the landscape, so I don’t want to see someone else’s house when I go to the placard. Also, what happens if you leave the boundaries of the plot? Like if I’m standing on my fence, or hop over it… Does it immediately go back to cycling through other people’s houses? A big reason people like a lot of the plots they do is for the scenery around them.

Though I will give you this, it would be a good way of dealing with the issue that certain people only want certain plots! But if I was able to get my dream plot that way, and couldn’t actually take screenshots of it (because I wouldn’t be able to zoom out far enough from inside the plot boundaries), I would have a sad… lol

Haha, it totally could. I would consider houses just flipping constantly right in your very moment being there a bit headache inducing, so what would probably be better is that every plot gets an associated address to a player's load out when you load the zone. If you have a preference you could theoretically save that.

What would happen relatively quickly is that you would have a person's house loaded but they would not have the same houses that you have loaded. So when people leave the magical phase barrier (invisible, seamless) they would come into and out of existence for other players based on where they were going. If you have building A loaded on plot 5 but I have building B, when we stand outside the house barrier we see each other, when you enter building A, as you cross the threshold, you would vanish to me as you'd move into an alternate existence to my own.

Talking in public would be another fun one. If you are using say in the common area I hear you, but when you move into the phase that is not my own... Do I still hear you even though I don't see you? Is this like house ghosts? You could be hearing people's voices across the void in your own property then hahaha. So maybe you decide not to do that, can't hear across the void, well then as a major house event is going on (like a club) you would see a large amount of players outside the placard talking about this location that you can't see and only half the conversation because half are not in your phase.

It would create some situations where people would have to untangle. Having the party leader bias everyone and allowing placards to change the pointers on the house would help. You would have very busy wards though, as you could have very few that represent hundreds of players. So theoretically you could have a static surrounding if you could save the addresses around you that you like, so long as they don't move from that location (and multiple players could have the same plot). An interesting consquence might be certain plots are so well loved, and some so hated, that you have like 500 people in plot 42 and 0 in plot 9.

These ideas that can work, in the sense it's not voodoo programming (doesn't mean easy though), but obviously come with a number of quirks. Ward phasing would be an example beyond say BDO since BDO is like one entrance point (door) / walls while our wards have many doors and front lawns (so seeing less confusion in BDO is logical). I believe players could learn the quirks, so I wouldn't say it can't work, but I'm more of an Instance and pure physical would be the smoothest options. Having what you suggest would be the easiest to adapt to, where it's an instances plot in a specific ward that if you want to leave you'd interact with a barrier.

Personally I'd like to see instanced be akin to ESO, EQ2, Rift, Wildstar, and the wards simply be an addon for those who'd like it (and then add a few things into that area that might draw players there, like seasonal events, etc). Don't worry about phasing, and provided full power that instances can provide (like x y z toggle collision object placement, big rocks and waterfalls, cause you're a creation magic lord).

If they had phased system more akin to BDO, where there is logical entrances and exits for flow (usually), more importantly just 'one' phased location not many (per area, they have multiple areas), and you could place them in social locations (like cities and hamlets), that'd be cool though. For example a loft in Ul'dah where you can see players wandering around, an Inn room in the cities where you just walk up the stairs into your room (and so it makes sense to hear all the commotion down below), own a large walled mansion house near the center of town. Things like that, where it was seamless, would feel pretty neat. I think Wards with their front lawn, and many at once, aspects can still work but the quirks of how phasing function will be a bit more obvious .

Your instanced bubble (plot) idea might just be mentally easier for people (and likely easier to implement).



If I was making and eating my cake to the moon and back:

- Many locations you can purchase houses from, each location has its own max item count (akin to ESO)
- Each house is account wide
- Early in the game you can manipulate objects X Y Z and toggle collision
- Many locations would be sole and phased, but right in the nexus of social spaces (like walking up the back stairs in an Inn would lead you to your own space, no loading screens).
- Occasionally SE adds lifestyle zones where you can link your house to that allows you to have an exterior to express yourself further
- There would be ward district with physical locations, many events and seasonals would go on here (perhaps quest start in the main city and then the associated housing district becomes the event center), the housing doors themselves would link to any door the player owns a location to


This obnoxiously requires quality phasing and instancing. More reasonably I'd just say scrap the phasing and give players the ability to control the layout of the area they are in like Wildstar, Rift (to an extent), or heck even Path of Exile lol. So more simply (..ish..) you'd have wards, instanced interior, and instanced exteriors or featured pre-decorated locations. For example some life style are instanced (Island), and others might be pre-decorated (Ishgard, Doma) but could have some objects to interact with (like a community garden). Would be neat if they can still add some unique exterior locations over time though, like I'd love to see an Azim Steppe overlook, bottom of the sea air bubble, Amaurot, Sky Pirate Island / Elpis, etc (things that you could do in an instanced setup).

[LianaThorne]

There is a problem with the system, yes.

But honestly the biggest problem overall is that people are always very selective. Whether there's 30 wards, 60 wards, 90 wards -- There's still a finite number of plots that people will want to take and no amount of ward-system will solve this problem. This is the case on more servers than it isn't the case, and only a few servers would really benefit from more wards.

You could open up the remaining wards tomorrow on Sagittarius, and all of the larges in Shirogane will be taken within the first lottery cycle, and then all the others by the end of the second, maybe 3rd cycle. After that you'd be left with a few prime medium and small plots getting sucked up, e.g., the Goblet medium in Brimming Heart, or the one by the river in Lavender Beds... After that? You'll still have troves of empty plots for all current wards.

And then they'll get mad and act like they wanted the plots when a multi-owner picks them up.

Make it make sense.

[Reinha]

Instanced housing, one ward. Every plot is instanced, and you choose what house you want to see and visit via the placard at the entrance, (which has thumbnails)
This way, your place is open to visitors if you want them, without having to form a party like in other MMO's instanced housing.
Your own house always appears in your plot unless you pick another one.

If phasing was possible they should put the phased plot somewhere else. A single house somewhere that displays as your own house or a random stranger's house.

No need to ruin ward housing if all people want is their own plot, right? Unless the motive for these requests is to actually ruin ward housing because someone didn't get the plot they wanted and is bitter.

[strawberrycake]

My issue with housing is that we still havent done anything about people who own multiple houses in wards or in some cases entire wards. I, also, have a very unpopular opinion.

Stop turning off housing Demolition, the system literally has become this way due to it being turned off so much. I've literally always been lucky to have a house, but if I lose it so be it, it's not the huge of a deal, let people have a fair chance at housing by letting your system funtion as intended.