Thoughts on additional wards

[HyoMinPark]

Doubling the wards would ideally give roughly 60-65% of active characters eligible to own housing (since you have to be level 50 to buy one) a house, but this doesn't account for Free Companies. And the more the playerbase grows on each server, the more of an issue sticking to Ward housing is going to be.

I would honestly suggest transforming the current 12 wards into FC only housing. Then adding a 13th Ward with plots that are decorated, but each one leads to an unlimited amount of instanced plots, similar to how apartments and FC rooms function. The plots in the 13th Ward would be for personal housing, and could theoretically be unlimited in number like apartments can be. Because the plots would be instanced (yard and interior of the house), and not constantly running like the wards are right now. That alone would take a strain off of the server memory. SE also needs to implement a "one house per server per account" rule to prevent individuals from taking up 16 plots on one account (8 characters, each with 1 personal house and 1 FC house).

The more the game grows, the more limited housing is going to become. Even with people relinquishing plots. Because it is in extremely high demand, and there just isn't enough supply to meet the demand.

[Clover_Blake]

I would honestly suggest transforming the current 12 wards into FC only housing. Then adding a 13th Ward with plots that are decorated, but each one leads to an unlimited amount of instanced plots, similar to how apartments and FC rooms function.

I'd really hate this solution. It's basically saying that my whole house would disappear from the neighbourhood and would become an apartment. I love the neighbourhood and I love feeling like a part of it. I'm sure we can find solutions that don't involve running over people who already own houses.

[Wade]

"To prevent speculation, we will refrain from releasing information until absolutely necessary" - the epitome of contradiction in a sentence.

[JCharms]

"To prevent speculation, we will refrain from releasing information until absolutely necessary" - the epitome of contradiction in a sentence.

Sort of, but in a platform where you deal with a lot of immature people, and in the context that at the point of writing, he is not sure what they can actually achieve, I dont find the statement too far out there.
For example, he could of said, we will be working on trying to deliver many more wards, but realistcally, that may be out of the question and not possible. So if he did say that then said no dice a few weeks later, the pitchforks would be out and he would be cried down as a liar that promised more wards. This community is like that, they display it here every single day.
Its a shame he cant speak more openly and candidly, but as history has forever shown us, the plebs dont play nice, so this type of dialog is the norm for people in his position.

[SendohJin]

it's a bad translation, it's supposed to be "speculative buying/selling".

[Shougun]

Funny to say but the game is too popular for their current system, way too popular. Haha.

If they want housing to be limited for feels then its fine, but I find that really silly and frustrating for multiple reasons. I think housing is a really nice element in games that all would probably enjoy to some extent (not everyone went crazy in FFXI but it was definitely a place to call your own).

Frustrating since the system is limited by itself, so its not really possible to see how many would enjoy housing or how extensive people would like features in it (say if everyone got a starter and upgrade-able plot for free, you might find that housing is a huge content for the game). Definitely could be wrong but I believe if it had a lower barrier more people would take part, and it would encourage SE to add more features and content - it would then become a better content because of it.

Of course I doubt they're just sitting on the issue because it's fun for them to watch people be frustrated. I'm sure it's some significant issue like how the architecture is set up. Or a belief that the content isn't worth that much time, "you say you want a house, but I don't believe you" lol. Personally I think players of a FF/SE game would like housing even more than other MMOs that have excellent systems just because there is a very high visual and nostalgic* element to FF games and so customization is an even bigger/better "end game" for many people, so I hope it isn't that later reason haha. *Allowing players to vaguely create some of their favorite chill spots through the series for example, a chocobo ranch, or what have you.

There are a few extra considerations to add to complicate the matter, also noting ReplicaX's comment, is that you have players who want to own multiple houses (if the system was limitless I think this would be great for the economy) and also FC that don't have a house and should probably have one due to losing out on features. Besides players owning a house per character you can effectively have multiple FC under a single account via legitimate desire and then just shell FCs for houses/to sell to people later, so there is a gray area in there as people will expand themselves to meet the demand to sell later and then also people who are not accounted for that do demand it (FCs).

664,640 houses is a lot of information to pass around though lol (#pulled from total active players on the site brought up in this thread). Perhaps a house per account, and a special memory friendly zone for FC might be able to cut that number down greatly (number of houses, amount of information being managed - it's still a lot though). Those who want another, extra, house perhaps can be put in the mogshop (I'm sure if they added enough customization besides people who want it for personal RP you'd also get people buying areas for group RP, like "inn" "restaurant" and whatever power they put into the system).

[Mikki]

Of course I doubt they're just sitting on the issue because it's fun for them to watch people be frustrated. I'm sure it's some significant issue like how the architecture is set up. Or a belief that the content isn't worth that much time, "you say you want a house, but I don't believe you" lol. .

This is an interesting point.... So many people buy houses and keep them, but you have to wonder how many are using them? Since I've bought my Shirogane house, I have seen only one FC hanging around and one other player. I walk around the ward a lot. I look at people's houses. In my area, many houses have no lawn decoration and some haven't even built the house yet (perhaps resellers idk).When I was in Lavender Beds, I saw more people than I have here and that's shocking to me since it literally just came out. Although I guess people could be busy doing other content..........

But yeah, could the fact that people hog houses but barely use them be the reason behind SE's reluctance to truly pour investment into fixing these issues? Personally, I really am saddened when I see people who don't really use their house. I had one friend who simply had an empty house and only used it for a convenient/cheap teleport and vendors. I wondered why he didn't just use an apartment.... But I guess you can have more vendors this way.

[Nerfworthy]

snip

I had mine almost fully decorated within an hour of buying it. Some people actually walked by and went "wow! so fancy so fast!". I realized not everyone has had the chance, or perhaps they are completely broke from just buying the plot. I don't know. Personally, I've been crafting and preparing tons of decoration for myself + to sell for profit in the last few months.

[SendohJin]

But yeah, could the fact that people hog houses but barely use them be the reason behind SE's reluctance to truly pour investment into fixing these issues? Personally, I really am saddened when I see people who don't really use their house. I had one friend who simply had an empty house and only used it for a convenient/cheap teleport and vendors. I wondered why he didn't just use an apartment.... But I guess you can have more vendors this way.

There's not enough to do. This is an instanced based game, when people are logged in, they are doing their trials/raids/roulettes.

there is so very little incentive for a single player to be inside his/her house, there's even less incentive for them to stand outside in their yard.

it's kind of a double-edged sword, you would want furniture that can boost crafting so someone would actually want to go into their house and go to their crafting station to do crafts. you would want extra storage in a house (that's for not just furnishings) so that people don't just use the Retainer Bells in Rhalgar's Reach / Kugane. the problem is when you make houses actually useful this would make it even worse that there are so many players who don't have them.

and owning a house is incentive to do events/quests that reward furnishings. what's the point of having a Christmas Tree if you don't have a yard to put it in.

[Thunderblaze]

I have a medium house that I don't really decorate or anything. I use it for my garden patches. Those patches made back the 7.9mill several times over.

Allow me to rent/use gardens elsewhere, and I'll release my house np.