What would you do to improve/'fix' housing?

[Lyshell]

Instanced gardening for apartments. Just one plot for each apartment.

[Kirito_Fuwa]

Just my 2c ...

For FC housing they should open up FC only areas where-ever Roweana goes. Ties in with lore. So FC only wards in Mor Dhona, Idyllshire, Rhalgrs Reach. Provide castle grade where you can place Market Board at.

For Apartments, make green houses inside the wards, require players to own an apartment, you are allowed to plant 1 seed, 2 if you are the first. Others can plant next to yours to cross them.

Personal housing should be in City State areas. There should be additional areas by now, a different style of existing ones.

- Dynamic Wards up to 20 (needs to dynamic cause you dont want empty wards)
- 5 styles of each area (100 wards, 6000 houses per City State)

Or Dynamic Wards, detach from "server" make it Data Center scaling.

[Tint]

i would remove private houses completely. people will get the gil back, furniture goes into the new storage. the houses will be FC-only again.

private housing will be different, like they promised us a few years ago... i would remove the apartment buildings from the housing districts and relocate them directly into the city. so all apartments, wich are now spread out over the different districts, will be all in the same house. this house will get a way bigger lobby, with marketboard and retainer-bell inside, so basically a place to meet other people.
the apartments will be bigger, the size of a small house, will have 2 floors and a balcony with gardening for crossbreeding.

[KageTokage]

If they can't double/triple the number of wards currently available, apartments should at least have gardens and the company workshop needs to be accessible from the apartments, as well.

Locking several items away from players who don't have a house is dumb.

[Stormfur]

I'd leave the current mix of personal and FC housing alone. I mean, the popularity of housing probably wasn't anticipated as they grew from 1.0.

However, I would suggest:

1) Creating "Elite" wards with only mansions for FCs only - who have reached rank 6 and have 10 or more active members (members who have logged on at least once in 30 days) - this prevents the "one man FC" from owning an elite home. In order to entice FCs to move, perhaps they'd get something like a workshop upgrade or an extra airship or something really nice that's beneficial to all members.

2) Create more wards with medium and small houses across all current areas (Goblet, Shiro, Lavender, Mist)

3) Create additional wards in new places like Sea of Clouds - you can buy your own private island but it's only one per account and bought through either mog station or with your achievement points.

[ArmachiA]

We can't just tell them to rip out wards and create an entirely new system, because that could take a long while so I'll try to work with the current system -

1. Prices need to be higher. There's too much gil in the economy thanks to a number of reasons and it's pretty easy for someone who's a bit dedicated to make enough for a large house in a matter of a month or so. FCs can do it in a day if the members just pool their money together. When housing launched, houses were around 200mil on Balmung to try to get the money off the server - and houses sat for months empty because no FC could afford them. Nowadays? 200million can be done by one dedicated FC in a matter of a few weeks.
For that, I'd raise the price to match the economy. Yeah everyone who has one now would have to be grandfathered in, but it's the only way for this to work. Larges should move up to 250-300mil. Mediums to 75-100mil. SMALLS on the other hand, since they aren't as desirable by the "Look at how rich I am" crowd or FCs, should hover around 10-15 mill - enough for most people to grind up money but not cheap enough so the impact on the economy is nil.

2. Let people put houses on the AH. Scalping would be an easier pill to swallow if you could legit put the house on the auction house and buying it meant you get the land immediately when the other person confirmed the trade instead of the current system of paying someone millions for the chance to spend millions on the land. This would also keep housing at a pretty consistent price range. Putting a cap on the maximum value is optional.

3. Lock it to one house per account. One FC house, one personal per account. This will keep people from having all their alts with houses and making a bunch of fake FCs to get more houses. Tell people who currently are doing that they have 30 days to clear out their home, give them their money back plus some, then get rid their ownership.

4. Add Wards more than once a year. The last time Wards were added was 3.3! This makes people panic when housing DOES come out because they think "It's now or never" making the housing rush WAY worse. How do we know the next time wards will be added won't be till 5.0 or 4.5b? We don't. Past experience dictates we may only get wards once a year. That's unacceptable. It will still be somewhat iffy about getting a house, but adding 6-7 wards per patch will stop that "Now or Never" panicked feeling. I mean... houses came out in 2.1 and personal homes were rolled out in 2.3. Then subdivisions in 2.4 then... nothing till 3.3? Then NOTHING AGAIN till 4.1? Statistically, people's best shots of getting a home was in 2.x - when most people didn't even play the game. As population went up, housing openings went down.

5. FC and personal housing wards should be separate going forward. I'm not against personal homes, in fact I liked mine before it got demolished due to me moving. But FCs need to have either first dibs or their own wards. Currently Shirogane on Balmung is about 90% personal, 10% FC. SE constantly talks about how important FCs and it's housing are so I hope this is a harsh lesson for them. Open up 4 or 5 wards in each housing area at each patch for FCs, then four or five more for personal - that way these two VERY different markets aren't competing with each other.

[Jaibamon]

There are two reasons why everyone can't get a house:

1. The space. Square made wards, and in those wards, a limited amount of houses. This was made it seems because Square wanted to give players something more than a house, they wanted to give us a small town, a neighborhood, something more organic than instanced, lonely houses.
2. Character data. FFXIV seems to have to handle a lot of data per character. From inventory, gear, glamours, stats, settings, Companion's looks and stats, retainers' stats and appearances. Between this there is also house data, including furniture positions, color, and instances.

Right now, a character may store data for one apartment, one FC room, a FC house and a personal house. Of these, the FC and personal houses are the more valuable and loved because the benefits, the customization, the space, and how they look.

My suggestion is that SE get rid of Wards. SE should also get rid of FC rooms and apartments. This should allow the servers to handle the character's data so everyone can have a house regardless of its size.

Then, every house should be instanced. Lonely, pretty houses with some nice, non-reachable landscape around it. This should solve the space problem. No wards, so no space limit. Every player can have a house. Only one house per character, and a FC Leader's house is also a FC House.

Finally, allow players to setup Neighborhoods. Just like making a party, a player can invite other players or FCs and become Neighborhood leader. A player can only be in one neighborhood at time. SE has some experience with procedural estructures with PotD, so they shouldn't have many problems by making a procedural neighborhood. It doesn't have to be so complex, just a line, or a grind based on the amount of houses. Imagine, some can make alliances with various FCs, or a bunch of friends can be on the same neighborhood. A couple can be on their own personal town, or you may find neighborhood related with some themes.

It may not be as organic as before, but it would solve this issue in a very interesting way.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Embrace instanced housing. Short of that, they could borrow from The Sims 4 and create pseudo-neighborhoods with say, five houses between each instanced. Thus, the community aspect is retained for those who value it but less load is placed on the servers to better accommodate players. If even this were too much an undertaking, then simply expand Apartments. Why not allow multiple rooms similar to a FC door? Increase the size equivalent to something like a New York styled loft and add a balcony for outside decor.

There are plenty of alternatives. They simply refuse to explore them.

[Cinno]

It doesnt even need to be instanced... theres things they could do right now that would solve most of the problems.

Stage 1: Destroy the 'house flipping' market.
1) One personal house allowed per account. The house is listed as owned by the character that purchased it, but all characters on the account will have ownership and permissions as if they the owner. This will prevent players from purchasing houses on alts and stockpiling the plots to sell. Single person FC's will still be an issue however. At first login after this change, players with multiple houses will be required to pick one characters house to save, all the rest will be demolished with all furniture/decor returned to the player (even things that would normally be destroyed, as this is a special circumstance)
2) Have a 'cooldown' period on the plot. Once a house has been demolished, that plot cannot be purchased by anyone for a set amount of time. Maybe 15 days, or 30. Enough time to where people would not want to risk buying the house from a flipper in the first place, as they wouldnt be able to immediately buy it. Also, dont display the timer of the cooldown. That way random people walking the neighborhood will not know when the plot will be free, just that it will eventually be free.

These two steps alone will stop the house flipping market, or at least do damage to it. With that out of the way, we can move on to the next stage.

Stage 2: Make apartments more Desirable.

Apartments as they are, are not an adequate alternative to houses. They are the size of a FC room with basic features. If they want individual players to gravitate to the apartments, they need to make them more desireable.

1) Offer different sized layouts, for different prices. You can a have a Studio, the standard fc sized room to start with. Next size up would be a Classic, the size of a medium house (instead of stairs leading to the basement, just have a second adjecent room thats the same size as the medium house basement.) And the third option would be the Townhome, the layout of the medium apartment but with stairs leading to a large second floor.
2) Add features that houses have, although limited. For starters, each apartment would have a decent sized patio. That patio could house exterior decorations and furnishings, and could even have a spot for a small gardening plot (so that people could garden and cross breed). The bigger the apartment layout, the bigger the patio. You could even have a view of the Ward from on the patio (A static view that doesnt show any player characters or anything. just a background.)

With players being unable to purchase multiple plots per account, and apartments being made a little more desirable for the individual would-be home owner, we can move on to the final stage.

Stage 3: increase the availability of houses and wards as demand increases.
This has been suggested in this thread already a lot, and thats because its a solid solution. With the first two stages hopefully freeing up some plots, the demand will still be a little more than the servers can handle, but it shouldnt be as chaotic. That being said, they should have a check happen a week before every patch. That check will scan the wards and determine if any of them are at or above 95% capacity. If they are, a single new ward will be generated during the patch. This will be a slow process, but it will guarantee that the housing demand will eventually be met, without having the server costs and stress of adding ten wards all at once.

I believe that with all of these things in place, the housing crisis will eventually settle down, and people will be able to have houses as needed.

One last tidbit though, I do believe that the demolition timer should stay, however It needs to be based on sub time and not stepping on the property. As long as you have an active sub, your plot will be safe. If you cancel your sub, the 45 day timer can start and after that 45 days if you havent re subbed to the game, your house will be lost.

Thats my three step system to fixing housing. Wasn't so hard honestly. This could be done. SOMETHING needs to be done.

[Felmin]

Many have stated similar solutions but I will post mine as well to strengthen our stance.

Creating more wards and more houses creates less problems.
It does NOT solve the issue.

1. Leave the wards and current houses as they are

• it is not fair for current house owners to be affected by any future changes to how housing should be done

2. Give us instanced housing with customizable environment

• 1 house in a small instance where users can edit the environment (planting trees, creating waterfront, editing terrain)
• Allow owners to upgrade their current house size
• Allow friends to visit the house instance