The Housing problem and my proposed solution

[Bishop81]

If some people just want a house to have it "seen" for a strange form of epeen boost or arousal lol then thats a totally personal issue that needs some counselling imo. Theres being proud then there's...just plain being odd.

Ha!

Trove (as I said probably apple vs oranges) allow you to do just that though - show off your house I mean.

While the plots where you can put your house down are "fixed", your house is portable.

One of the most common spots are plots around the hub island (one of its many copies anyway; i.e. it's instanced, once it has reach it population limit, a new instance is spawned for incoming players logging in) as it's one of the few places where Shadow Invaders won't spawn to interrupt your AFKing or fishing.

Other players occasionally drop in to check out your place, use your work benches, refill their potions (it's free and unlimited) or just to try to disturb you while you are fishing. -_-

I personally have seen some pretty crazy designs - including pixel art. For most part it's actually something you can show off, since you built it vs using something pre-made - kind of like showing off a costume you made yourself vs showing off a store-bought one.

[Bishop81]

On a side note, housing for the masses is something they need to get working ASAP.

It's one of the few avenues where players can flex their creativity instead of just "doing content" (i.e. run errands demanded of you by NPCs) - which either runs out pretty quick as players will clear content faster than developers can make it or it gets dragged out into a boring grind (and some players just say "Screw this, man." and throw in the towel; i.e. they have nothing to do again).

PS: Content driven MMOs are IMHO unsustainable gameplay-wise. There will always be frequent content droughts. Developers IMO should not be creating the "paintings" but instead the "brushes and paints", i.e. the tools. Provide a well equipped playground for players to play in.

[Dante_V]

They should def instance personal housing but that's a moot point now, it never should have been added in the first place (as it is now) honestly. That was where they messed up big time.

[Waeksyn]

They should def instance personal housing but that's a moot point now, it never should have been added in the first place (as it is now) honestly. That was where they messed up big time.

Its not really a moot point. SE has the ability to fix this by designing a new, personal housing system that is instanced and able to handle everyone. Combine that with a clean way for folks to move their existing house into this system in order to free up ward space for FC houses and you're all set.

SE is throwing good money after bad by trying to make their current system work by tweaking here and there. Time to admit defeat and provide a real option.

PS, thank you for using the word "moot" instead of "mute".

[ApolloGenX]

The solution: We pay a subscription and they should have decent infrastructure to support game play. Period.

The excuse "server capacity" is completely unacceptable in a pay 2 play game. SE's lack of foresight or investment is unacceptable.

[Sandpark]

Free company housing is guild housing content. It is not meant to be had by everyone. Think of it like Tera Skycastles. Self notion of entitlement does not grant access to everything. If you want to solo everything only, that is fine. Just don't expect to get the best raid gear. Want to craft only? Don't expect the best PvP gear in combat.

The problem is this free company content is not casual content but it has casual content locked behind it like chocobo stabling, decorating, and gardening. For things like that, there should be instanced personal houses available to everyone.

Hey you want airship crafting? Ask for personal airship crafting and content to use it in like Island exploration, airship pvp, etc. Or you want to craft magitek armor? Ask for for personal magitek crafting and content to use it in like battle/racing competitions or pvp combat or magitek riding dungeons. Ask for solo dungeons that actually give xp.

For larger non casual stuff, there needs to be guild and guild only content to breed community. Without community this game is just a lobby social media simulator.

[Kosmos992k]

Hmmm....

I agree that locking down the existing housing wards for FC only and letting the existing personal ownership of homes there decay over time is a good idea - as long as a viable alternative exists. I think the main thing I would change with your proposal is the use of the Inn room as the basis.

Rather than using the Inn room as a personal housing, I think it would be more fitting to expand on the Personal Chamber concept that we have from the Free Company house. I'm thinking in terms of a Condominium style complex in each Housing area that may be entered from the main square in the housing zone.

The entrance area should support some community features such as the market boards, message moogles and summoning bells, The main 'square' in each housing area would be ideal for this since it already has such things as well as an NPC who would be able to act as a concierge who you speak to to gain access to your home. It would certainly increase the foot traffic in these areas, creating a greater sense of community perhaps.

The starting 'home' would be about the same as the Personal Chamber but with the addition of a small 'outside' area that may be used for things such as a small garden, chocobo stable, and outdoor furnishings. The key point of the 'outside' area is that this personal housing should offer the same advantages to players that the existing personal housing offers, as a minimum standard. Start it out at 600,000 gil, that is a bit more than the 300k for a personal chamber, but the addition of an external space justifies the additional expense. The entry point price of 600K gil is also a whole lot more affordable than the existing homes meaning that most any player who saves the gil they gain through leveling quests could afford their own home (which was an originally stated goal for housing IIRC).

Adding options to your personal home as you describe is a very nice idea, larger floor plan, larger garden outside, second floor, etc...All good options. This way housing would be individually instanced, but separate from the Inn rooms which I feel should remain separate. To prevent overly much stress on the servers, I do think it may be necessary to reign in the idea of including basements/second floors and such, that may stress the instance servers. But a larger floor plan with attached 'outdoor' space' should not be beyond possibility.

Because the home is instanced, it will only 'exist' when the owner is there, if the owner is not there, then the instance closes - this will reduce server stress caused by operating so many housing instances on crowded servers. The main 'detraction' from this concept is that people would only be able to visit a player's home if they are there and if they have allowed guest access. If the owner leaves, any visitors would be relocated to the entrance in the main square. The exception to this would be any player who the owner has tagged as a co-owner. I think this is an important feature to allow couples and friends to share homes.

This builds on the private chambers, it re-uses that existing system, and has minimizes impact on the servers.

An additional option you could throw in here would be an enhanced instanced personal home that allows additional floors, complete redesign of the exterior, as well as an external landscape. Of course you could build a small, medium or large home in this special lot of land, and you would always have an outside space larger than that available to the owners of existing large lots. Essentially a home in a small 'zone' of it's own. This would be a paid housing service, players would pay a monthly fee similar to the retainer fee, but in return they gain a much larger lot of land, higher item counts both indoors and outdoors to allow greater customization and decoration. The item limit for such an enhanced house should be at least double what the limit is on large homes. The enhanced house should be available for visitors whether or not the owner is there, based on the guest settings of course.

Even though the enhanced lot would be a paid service and larger than existing housing lots, it would offer no advantage in terms of the number of garden plots, the additional item counts and size would not allow players an advantage over players who do not pay for the additional service. So although cosmetically a player could have a hugely opulent manor house, they would not be able to have more garden plots or anything of that nature that would provide a paid advantage over other players.

So you would have 3 forms of housing in the game plus the room at the Inn. The three forms being;

1. Instanced Personal housing paid for with in-game currency.
2. Neighborhood based FC/Personal housing paid for with in-game currency (limited to FCs going forwards).
3. Enhanced instanced Personal housing paid for by additional service fees.

[Edit] - By keeping the Inn room separate from this, all players have automatic access to a place of their 'own' in any of the main cities which maintains the universal, free access for players with a subscription to things such as the crystal bell, summoning bell and armoire. I'd like to see more done with the toy box to make Inn rooms stand out, but that is another discussion....

This would serve all types of player. Existing individual owners would not be penalized, all players would be able to have their own 'home' and players who want to, could spend a bit more actual money, to have a fancy place to show off to others. Free Company houses would still retain their use through the FC specific items and systems accessible through the FC house.

[Miscreant]

My only issue with the housing is that FC and Personal housing share the same Wards.

We will get new housing areas soon enough, just have to be patient.

[Kosmos992k]

My only issue with the housing is that FC and Personal housing share the same Wards.

We will get new housing areas soon enough, just have to be patient.

That will not solve the problem at all. There are far, far more players in the game than the number of available lots. Adding a new housing area will only increase the tiny number of wards and lots by one third over the existing system - which doesn't even come close to denting the problem.

The existing system serves a miniscule number of players, that is the problem. Adding a fraction of a tiny fraction to itself results in a slightly larger, but still tiny fraction... Until you have a system that serves all players, you have a problem.

Instanced housing could be as varied and exciting as development budget will allow. Think of having 20+ different options (for different prices) when you purchase your instanced home - each with different building design, overall landscape theme and amenities (garden plots, stables, etc). They could feed into a "lobby" area that has things like MB and bell and housing related NPCs (things that you need to leave your current house to access in the wards now) to preserve a "community" gathering place.

A condominium style system with an entrance in the main square of the housing zones would take care of this.

The only thing that would be missing is the ability to show off your house to the general public and even that could be included (I'm thinking the ability to set "open house" to invite the public to tour your house, or to restrict access to those in your party, FC, LS, etc.). I think that would be a fair trade-off to enable EVERYONE that pays a subscription to have access to housing and all of the content that is gated behind housing (gardening, stables, workshop, airship ventures, etc).

One thing I disagree with in this is that content such as the workshop and Airship ventures should remain FC exclusive, and not be linked to personal housing.

Sorry for my bad spelling today... on my phone and it's keyboard is small for me...

Can't find the edit post button on the Android version of the forums...

Watch out for the soft buttons immediately below the space bar on Android, they can swallow your post before you even send it if your finger happens to brush one of them when you are meaning to hit the space bar. Quite why they don't allow the user to move the soft buttons to a different location is beyond me.

[Makeda]

Sorry for my bad spelling today... on my phone and it's keyboard is small for me...

Can't find the edit post button on the Android version of the forums...