Alternative to Personal Housing... Farms!

[Mihana]

Before anyone says it, this is not a solution to the housing issue or how they should do it. This is a suggestion, an alternate means for those who cannot afford a personal home.

Personal Farms

What Is It?

A personal farm is a very small instanced plot of land where a player can garden, stable their chocobo, and generally just relax in. A place of solace after a hard day's adventuring. For the cost of 250,000 gil a player can purchase a farm permit from any of the 3 city states. From there, a player chooses a plot of land in a city-state to rent on a monthly basis. 100 allied seals per month will secure their plot. At any time if a player decides, they can uproot from the plot and stop paying the seals. They can relocate to a different city-state or just stop altogether. Alternatively, a player can spend 25,000 gil per month if they prefer not to use seals.

What It Comes With...

Each plot comes with a small (Think about half the size of a personal chamber.) pre-furnished hut on it. The player can choose from a set list of furnishings, interior decor, and exterior appearance for their hut. On this plot of land is six-to-four spots to plant seeds for players to grow plants. Additionally a single stable is on the property for the player to stable their Chocobo. The stable too can be chosen from a set list of appearances. Players cannot custom design their plot with exterior/interior furnishings since they are renting the land and do not own it.

Why Rent?

The reason behind renting is due to the low price and the fact it is easily accessible to everyone. Plus, you can easily relocate without having to spend a fortune of gil hoping to get a new plot of land, build your home, and then refurnish it. It also gives incentive for those who don't care much about The Hunt to use it as an alternate means. Two weekly B Rank hunts will easily net you your month's fee, or you can use gil. This makes it easy for casual players to enjoy it as well.

Retainers Can Garden Too!

As an added feature for those too lazy to garden a retainer can be given a choice of seeds and soil. For the price of 5 Ventures, a retainer can be assigned to garden in the player's stead. The duration varies by the period of time it takes for the seeds to grow until ready for harvest. A retainer who has been assigned to garden cannot be sent on other ventures until it ends, or the player forfeits. Note a retainer will not apply nor can the player apply fertilizer to gardens being tended by a retainer, and the yield will vary. In some rarer cases, a retainer may fail and not every seed planted will yield bounty.

Why Suggest This...

From some comments I have seen, some players want personal housing so they can garden. Some players may even belong in a FC unfortunate enough to lack funding for a house, or in the current case, land. Players cannot dye their chocobos because they lack a house and stable for it. Others are locked out from the achievement from feeding other people's chocobos. By adding in personal farms as an alternative those less fortunate to either afford or purchase land can enjoy these activities as well. Keeping it non-customizable (As in putting down furnishings wherever you wish and the layout of your land.) also keeps the main attraction of personal chambers and housing in focus too.

[Parz3val]

I don't want to play WoW.

[Defteros]

you are suggesting a personal house with another name, to solve the personal house problem?

[Duelle]

I don't want to play WoW.

What does that have to do with anything? Farms in WoW belonged to a character that was based on Harvest Moon's protagonist. The NPCs that would "help" out at the farm were there partly for RP purposes. The fact that you're renting the farm rather than own it is more akin to mog lockers.

[Spetsnaz]

All I'm asking for is a place to farm so I don't have to keep asking my FC... I feel like a mooch even though I've donated far more than I've received goods wise.

[Mihana]

you are suggesting a personal house with another name, to solve the personal house problem?

Uh, no? For all I care, remove the hut portion. I just figured it would be a nice touch. The point of my suggestion was some place to participate in features that aren't available to many players due to the fact personal housing is severely limited. Some FCs don't even have a house because they either can't afford it, or there are no open plots for them to get one. A plot of land to garden on, a little stable for housing your Chocobo. And actually it's different from personal housing because you cannot customize your area. Want the full experience? Get a real house.

At any rate it's better than ranting and bitching without at least trying to suggest an alternative, no? I've done my own share of this since the patch dropped and figured instead of contributing to the problem, offer a possible solution to help those who cannot get a home.

[BobbinT]

If you ever played FFXI, Adoulin introduced Mog Garden. It's essentially what OP described more or less, and... it doesn't cost anything to have one, just need to do quest to unlock it.

And I agree though, XI's Mog Garden should be carried over to XIV. Kinda stupid that players need to sacrifice alot just trying to grow their farm which already involves delicate task compared with XI's gardening system.

[Defteros]

snip

gils are not the problem of personal housing....
the problem is the limited amount of plots.

you are suggesting something pretty much affordable by most of the playerbase, and that requires LOTS of availble plots.

[Mihana]

you are suggesting something pretty much affordable by most of the playerbase, and that requires LOTS of availble plots.

In my suggestion I said instanced, as in "on-demand". Something that should be low-memory consumption compared to the huge wards we currently have. For some reason or another SE seems pretty adamant about not providing housing via an instanced area. If they want to do that still then fine. Instanced land still requires server memory I'm aware which is why I also suggested limitations on what you can actually do. It's a small, little plot with a spot to garden and stable your chocobo. That's it. Those who are in a FC with a house probably already have a personal chamber to decorate to their heart's content, and those who don't care about housing may only want the added feature to grow plants for profit or for training their chocobo.

You can only raise your chocobo's level cap via stabling it and feeding it an onion. Unfortunately the housing issue restricts a lot of players from engaging in this. Even in a Free Company home you're limited on what you can grow, especially in a 100+ member group. Everyone wants to garden but only a select few can at a time. By providing an other option such as a personal farm, whatever you want to call it, it opens this up to many more players who otherwise cannot due to be it funds or lack of land.

[xXRaineXx]

Is this personal housing thing about farming or actually people wanting to decorate houses?

Seem to be seeing a lot of people ranting about 'farms' more than the actual house itself.