Housing: there has to be a better way

[Airget]

An NPC to "preorder" a house could of worked. Rather than set in stone the amount of instances they think will be enough, have the players buy a lot beforehand and then SE calculates the instances needed to fulfill the request.

[Tsunenori]

I could write a book about all the issues I have with the current housing system, but instead of just dumping all of that here I'll simply put it this way: housing, as a whole, is in need of attention and Square-Enix would benefit from revisiting their ideas about the system from the ground up. Does it have to change from the ground up? Maybe, maybe not. There are, however, a lot of half-baked ideas and compromises that affect everyone, whether you own a home or not, which I think need to be addressed. This is the kind of content that keeps players around and invested, compared to the kind of one-and-done or relatively short term content with rewards that are outdated quickly. It deserves a bit more attention.

Edit: For the record I say this having had my house for years as well. I don't plan on moving it, so I don't have a horse in this race.

[Joe777]

Adding instanced housing would only take away from the neighborhood feeling we get the way it is now. In the end it boils down to people wanting more plots, which is easily solved by adding more wards. Whether SE can do that or not is up to them.

[Vrankyl]

While something needs to be done I do not feel forcing individuals who own homes into instanced housing is the right route. I for one love the way the wards are set up, I enjoy seeing my neighbors running about and the fact that for RP the set up is uniquely perfect. You will find many individuals on worlds like Balmung, Mateus, Odin, and several others with small rp communities use their houses for the sole purpose of rp. Now some may be content if they were given access to instanced housing, but I also know quite a few who'd hate to lose their house. The first step to fixing housing should honestly first be to make it one house per account, and allow personal houses to automatically have alts as tenants. This of course would also require a way to make it so people can't circumvent this just by having alts each owning a separate FC as a shell to purchase a house, otherwise we'd just end up having the situation in which one of the wards on Mateus found itself with two people owning the whole thing. From there I think they should also revisit apartments since having them as the same size as a FC room just.... doesn't do it for most. I'd say make apartments have the same size as a small with an instanced garden area so it can be used as a garden on a normal plot would. Thus those who want wards can keep them, and it will give a better instanced option as well.

[uvuvwevwevweonyetenyevweugwemu]

An NPC to "preorder" a house could of worked. Rather than set in stone the amount of instances they think will be enough, have the players buy a lot beforehand and then SE calculates the instances needed to fulfill the request.

^ This is the best idea I can get behind. They would still need to remove expiration whatever they do (~quantity=~time) and update the needs on every patch.

I don't think it will happen unless SE wants to remove the entire RL design, whatever we suggested. Housing is exclusive (-not- major) part of the game.
Nobody in the (open) world can ever own plots/land simply because it belongs to Hydaelin. The economy just designed to release/rent use whenever possible.
It's a RL simulation, pretty much like land tax part of sub and house flippers are real estate agents. Plots/lands are part of wards open system.
The house we built on top of it is already instanced like apartments. I don't like it but it is part of the game experience.

[Laerune]

Best way would to have it work like in another mmorpg, everyone gets their own plot of land and if friends/FC/Linkshell members want it, they are able to merge those plots in a neighbourhood.

[Mycow8me]

There is a better way, no houses for alts. 1 house per account. Done.

[Niqote]

Best way would to have it work like in another mmorpg, everyone gets their own plot of land and if friends/FC/Linkshell members want it, they are able to merge those plots in a neighbourhood.

what MMO does that? I'd love to have a look at the features.

[Welsper59]

Adding instanced housing would only take away from the neighborhood feeling we get the way it is now. In the end it boils down to people wanting more plots, which is easily solved by adding more wards. Whether SE can do that or not is up to them.

I'd argue that SE is starting to slowly be accepting of moving away from the neighborhood feel limitation. I think it's great to have that sense of a community, but at this point, most probably could not give a damn in the slightest if it means having a house or not.

I honestly think apartments was a waste of resources. It's nice in theory, but it sort of misses the point when it comes to what people actually want. A desirable scenario would be to have what we do now, with the neighborhoods and apartments, but also have an option for instanced housing for those who cannot get the current.

SE probably won't have the server resources to handle unique/customizable backgrounds currently, but a set one for each location should be plausible. I mean, the hidden or barren areas in housing zones could be an example of backgrounds for those instanced houses. Like the hidden beach or small onsen for Shirogane. It solidifies a tier system that anyone can aim for AND removes a ton of gil from the economy. Instanced housing allows for the possibility of an individual or FC to change their plot to whatever size freely.

[Laerune]

what MMO does that? I'd love to have a look at the features.

If I remember correctly its Wildstar.