instance based housing your ideas

[ShadowyZero]

Lets all share our ideas for what would be the most ideal instance based housing since we know we won't be getting any new houses anytime soon i feel like this would be a good time to throw out ideas i will go ahead and start with my own ideas let me know what yours would be
and just to say it ignore and block anyone who is trying to derail our discussion dont engage with them let their comments get buried into the dust dont feed them attention we'll all feel better for our own sanity that way.

Ahem, so what i think could work are a couple of things we've been teased that the loporritts had wanted to build us our own living space since endwalker and now they've been branching out to other bodies of habitable life it would be cool if cosmic exploration ends up with us claiming our own little star to make base on with fully customizeable layouts much like the island sanctuary this would leave room for futher expansion as well on our own little star in the future as well.

my second idea would to be to copy the Sharlayan's Labrynthos idea and to have our own special little dome somewhere on some island or such where we can create our own environment an be able to change day and night cycles as well as background settings like say you want a snowy mountains scape you can change from default to that with our little dome back drop or like say you want to have bodies of water cast out in the background then that could be placed as some sort of glamour etc and from there we could customize the instance to our liking and call it our permanent home settlement etc.

to note i would also want our instance home to be any size we choose whether its small, medium or large. more freedom of choice is super important and have the house be fully open too no loading zone to get inside have it be like island sanctuary buildings that way with doors that open and close like how we normally have in open areas and cities

[Kahnha]

So the apartments and FC rooms, make it to where you can pay to upgrade them to house sizes and allow gardens to be placed inside maybe as a different furniture

Make upgrading a bit cheaper for FC houses to incentivize joining FCs.

It would be lighter than creating whole wards.

With less demand for houses they could up the time it takes for auto Demo from 45 days to 5 months if not get rid of auto demo all together. (This is a self serving suggestion though)

[ShadowyZero]

So the apartments and FC rooms, make it to where you can pay to upgrade them to house sizes and allow gardens to be placed inside maybe as a different furniture

Make upgrading a bit cheaper for FC houses to incentivize joining FCs.

It would be lighter than creating whole wards.

With less demand for houses they could up the time it takes for auto Demo from 45 days to 5 months if not get rid of auto demo all together. (This is a self serving suggestion though)

these are definitely all good ideas for the existing housing system i would like that for those who prefer the old system to be able to upgrade themselves too. just not sure on if SE would be willing to overhaul the system to such a degree or not but with them adding in interior upgrade scalling i dont see why they couldn't do the same for the outside too like remake all plots to fit all the same size etc so that it can accommodate all house sizes etc.
i can definitely at least see them being able to do the apartment upgrade an extending the demolition though to at least 60 days instead of the 40 days in a timely manner though for certain.

i would also like to add with apartments they could make it like a penthouse exterior with an outdoor balcony that allows for placements of plants, hanging gardens or boxed ones, tables, chairs, and lighting etc. and for them to allow the loft furnishing to accommodate more items such as beds and chairs

[Kytrin]

My ultimate instanced housing dream would actually be townhomes within the major cities set somewhere relatively near the shopping districts/adventurer's guilds. On the outside they look and feel like entrances to a section of that city's residential district and on the inside they function like upgradeable apartments.

You can start out with a simple townhome/apartment that isn't functionally any different from the apartments we have now and everyone can get one once they complete their envoy quest in MSQ at around lvl 15-20 if they have the gil. As you level and sink gil into the place you can upgrade it to have more amenities and space. Like maybe go from a studio apartment to a 1 bedroom or the equivalent of a small house in terms of space and invest in a balcony or patio area. The further you progress and the more you invest the more you can add until ultimately you end up with the equivalent of a large penthouse suite.

Perhaps that penthouse suite could have a comfortable outside area with a private pool or hotsprings, and space for outdoor furnishings along with certain fixtures unique to that city (A rock garden in Kugane, a pond and trees in Gridania, desert plants in Ul'dah, etc.) and a magnificent view of the city itself. I know they've said in the past that there are issues with such views in instances because of players being in them, but one could very easily create a stunning view populated by NPCs only that is the same for everyone, and you don't actually see the other players until you leave.

Something like that would be my ideal.

Mind you, I wouldn't say not to all of that being applied to our current apartments either...

[ViinaS]

Just let me build a house on my island.
Like it's already instances, every player has one of their own already.

Just.let.me.put.a.house.there.

Not to mention the island itself has so much more potential.
Yet SE has made it as monotone, bland and boring as can be cause they are creatively bankrupt and abandoned it after EW.

[Kytrin]

Just let me build a house on my island.
Like it's already instances, every player has one of their own already.

Just.let.me.put.a.house.there.

Not to mention the island itself has so much more potential.
Yet SE has made it as monotone, bland and boring as can be cause they are creatively bankrupt and abandoned it after EW.

I would also love to see them do more with the Island and let us build a house there. If I can't get my city penthouse suites I'll gladly take my private tropical island home lol! It honestly fits better with my WoL's canon anyway since she has a great deal of fondness for Limsa and the Maelstrom for several reasons.

[Solowing]

these are definitely all good ideas for the existing housing system i would like that for those who prefer the old system to be able to upgrade themselves too. just not sure on if SE would be willing to overhaul the system to such a degree or not but with them adding in interior upgrade scalling i dont see why they couldn't do the same for the outside too like remake all plots to fit all the same size etc so that it can accommodate all house sizes etc.
i can definitely at least see them being able to do the apartment upgrade an extending the demolition though to at least 60 days instead of the 40 days in a timely manner though for certain.

i would also like to add with apartments they could make it like a penthouse exterior with an outdoor balcony that allows for placements of plants, hanging gardens or boxed ones, tables, chairs, and lighting etc. and for them to allow the loft furnishing to accommodate more items such as beds and chairs

So if free company rooms can be upgraded to plot sizes and gardens can be placed inside. It would make them no different than plots.

So why does one have the demolition timer in the other one doesn't?

[Khryseis_Astra]

So if free company rooms can be upgraded to plot sizes and gardens can be placed inside. It would make them no different than plots.

So why does one have the demolition timer in the other one doesn't?

Because one takes up permanent space and the other only loads when in use. We’ve been over this. lol

To sum up:
Ward housing:
Pros: “neighborhood feel” (if only in appearance most of the time), “prestigious locations” (basically based on scenery/view), anyone can visit and can hold more people for things like venues and such
Cons: limited supply, lottery, demo timer

Instanced housing:
Pros: Less server drain (only loads when in use), unlimited supply, off by itself with no neighbors to block their view or mess with their aesthetic, no demo timer, plus potential for features that are easier to implement in an instanced setting (ie: the Island’s furnishing glamour, ground settings, etc.; choose your own scenery)
Cons: limited visibility (could be friend/FC locked like the island, but even if they do it more directory based like apartments, strangers will need to make an effort to come to your house… but that could be a pro for many lol), probably less people allowed in instance (but not sure about that), no “prestige” because everyone can have one (though that gets an eyeroll from me lol)

[Solowing]

Because one takes up permanent space and the other only loads when in use. We’ve been over this. lol

To sum up:
Ward housing:
Pros: “neighborhood feel” (if only in appearance most of the time), “prestigious locations” (basically based on scenery/view), anyone can visit and can hold more people for things like venues and such
Cons: limited supply, lottery, demo timer

Instanced housing:
Pros: Less server drain (only loads when in use), unlimited supply, off by itself with no neighbors to block their view or mess with their aesthetic, no demo timer, plus potential for features that are easier to implement in an instanced setting (ie: the Island’s furnishing glamour, ground settings, etc.; choose your own scenery)
Cons: limited visibility (could be friend/FC locked like the island, but even if they do it more directory based like apartments, strangers will need to make an effort to come to your house… but that could be a pro for many lol), probably less people allowed in instance (but not sure about that), no “prestige” because everyone can have one (though that gets an eyeroll from me lol)

The players don't care about that. All they see is two of the same features being treated differently. Then player a is going to resent player b for having access in the same thing but he has to return periodically to not lose it? Where is player B can leave indefinitely. And that's not an issue they have to worry about.

If it's directory based, then you're still basically making a ward system.. but instead of being shared within a ward, it shared by one single instance point in the world. Now, if it's gonna be a directory, how many *biomes* can reside in that location until the directory is full? Or will it be friend list limited? Or would you need to be actively online for it to be generated?

If players want to come to my house that in itself is active effort. You Don't end up somebody's plot unless they want to be there. As you can see, players really areny out in the wards.Because there's no reason for them to be out there. They aren't being made to stay in the hub city. It's where they prefer to be.

And yes humans do place valuable value on rare things. If every other server had the same issue that Balmung has with housing supply even with apts.

Even apartment has value to balmung players bc they are hard to come by, where they are much easier to come by everywhere else to the point where it's common even unwanted. No one cares if you catch the lobster, unless it's blue. Because it's not something you normally see and that makes it inherently more valuable to us

[ShadowyZero]

So if free company rooms can be upgraded to plot sizes and gardens can be placed inside. It would make them no different than plots.

So why does one have the demolition timer in the other one doesn't?

Artificial Scarcity SoloWing, the developers made a messy system with good intentions ofc because the past playerbase asked them to add personal housing not tied to FC's but they never anticipated this game would rise above a certain threshold they prepared for this game to be neatly in its own little corner but then it blew up with alot of content creators bringing over their game audiences from WoW, GW2, etc.
not to mention by nature Final Fantasy was already a household name they branded their franchise on old nintendo devices an then later with sony on playstation an even further when xbox started to gain traction.
they were not prepared for a sudden boom of players and it shows the timer lock out was introduced to cull the scarcity but it only ended up causing frustrations because then players feel like they are forced to hold onto it when in reality that shouldn't even have to happen if they just made personal housing instance based while apartments were a good idea in theory it still lacked features from regular player housing that people wanted and thats what the island sanctuary was supposed to address if you go back to past interviews or comments on the topic you'd see people wanted a communal garden in which to grow plants in housing districts they wanted a stable for chocobo's, a place to show off their minions and a public workshop but somehow this didn't register in translation or the community team botched it up an now we are where we are.