Housing: there has to be a better way

[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.

[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around and invested, compared to the kind of one-and-done or relatively short term content with rewards that are outdated quickly.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.

[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.

[frostmagemari]

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.

Honestly, there is a way to do both. Have more houses and more sense of community; and it would have been so easy to do (if they started with it); they could probably revamp everything to do this, but it would obviously take a bit of work to change what's currently there.

What they needed to do is essentially make every house into an "apartment."

Have a single ward, and have placeholder houses on each plot with an assortment of themed yard items for whatever ward it was in. (table, chairs, etc)
Then have a placard in front of every home (just off the property) with the options "buy home" or "enter home"
You would allow multiple people to buy homes at a single plot and use the placard to browse through people who are living in that space as you would apartments. (Possibly adding a search option for first name or FC name)
Once you use the placard to enter a home, you're then taken to an instance for each individual owner and the house can work as it does now. (Yard and all, since we know SQE has no problem with instances inside instances with private quarters and airship rooms)
Then, add more social gathering spots in the wards themselves.

Honestly.. if they did something like this, you would have more people mingling outside of the homes and more traffic giving it a busy feeling instead of having everything spread across twelve wards; and they wouldn't need to worry about adding more wards and just opening up more housing instances.
Is it nice for everyone to see your house and the work you put into it? Maybe, but to everyone around you, seeing your house (no matter how beautiful or horrendous) loses it's appeal after the second time a person sees it.

I really like the neighborhood feel. But I don't understand why -- with this new server move and upgrade -- they couldn't add more wards to the existing areas in addition to the ones opening with Shiro?

Sometimes i think by move, they meant picking up the hardware and just setting it down somewhere else after a bumpy truck ride... and by upgrade, they meant buying new cables 'cause old ones were fraying too much...

[Theodric]

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.

Not everybody cares for the 'neighbourhood feeling', though. When I played on Balmung my house was surrounded by people using the gaudy chocobo and paissa houses which really ruined the area for me. None of my neighbours were particularly social, either - I don't recall ever seeing them even though I spent a lot of time in my garden.

More wards, are, of course, very welcome though.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Laerune]

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

If I remember correctly its Wildstar.