Adressing the roots of the housing problem

[Amomomo]

Not only are there not enough houses, there's not enough larger sized houses. So even if we did have the proper amount of wards, people would just be popping new wards forever wanting that largest possible plot.

EXACTLY.

I think the only fix is instanced personal housing, maybe leave the wards for FCs.

I'm all in the support this also. This solution was frequently seen back in 4.1 housing debate. Regardless of objections, there are very very very very VERY limited interactions between house owners in the ward system. Only times where I've seen people gather together was due to FC housing. Sociability of the ward system can only be achieved via FCs - my personal belief.

Of course, making this new system will take no little amount of resources. We can only hope that similar solutions will be achieved some day.

[Kytrin]

Not only are there not enough houses, there's not enough larger sized houses. So even if we did have the proper amount of wards, people would just be popping new wards forever wanting that largest possible plot. I think the only fix is instanced personal housing, maybe leave the wards for FCs.

If they did some serious QoL changes for apartments (increased size or upgradeable to something at least comparable to a regular medium sized house, indoor gardening, indoor striking dummies) I would be all for moving to an apartment and letting an FC buy my personal one after it demolished. I'd have most of my furnishings, and I'd get back most of my gil. The difference would be negligible enough I wouldn't care.

[Beelhi]

If they did some serious QoL changes for apartments (increased size or upgradeable to something at least comparable to a regular medium sized house, indoor gardening, indoor striking dummies) I would be all for moving to an apartment and letting an FC buy my personal one after it demolished. I'd have most of my furnishings, and I'd get back most of my gil. The difference would be negligible enough I wouldn't care.

THIS!
They can just make an instanced balcony with say 10 items or something.
Only difference is you can't show off your house in the ward, wich is pointless anyways seeing as every ward is a ghosttown.
Make future wards FC only (maybe with only L and M houses but less to even out the stress it puts on the server). And I'm sure alot of people would gladly give up their house for an apartment without demolishion timer, so whoever wants to be tied to the sub can just get a normal house.

[Kytrin]

They can just make an instanced balcony with say 10 items or something.

There was actually a winner from the furnishing design contest that had a brilliant idea for an indoor garden furnishing. If I remember correctly it would be approximately the size of an oriental bathtub and feature 6 or 8 plots you could plant things in. There was even koi fish and other things to make it decorative even without plants. That alone would work well enough for most people I reckon.

[MeridaQ]

There was actually a winner from the furnishing design contest that had a brilliant idea for an indoor garden furnishing. If I remember correctly it would be approximately the size of an oriental bathtub and feature 6 or 8 plots you could plant things in. There was even koi fish and other things to make it decorative even without plants. That alone would work well enough for most people I reckon.

Where did you see this? I want to see!

[Darrcyphfeid]

THIS!
They can just make an instanced balcony with say 10 items or something.

They have absolutely zero foresight. There's an interview that was done with Yoshi (don't have time to track it down at this moment) where he says that the way they went about creating/instancing apartments wouldn't let them incorporate yards/balconies. Maybe that's something they can figure out whenever they get around to ironing out details for making medium and large upgrades for apartments, but... yeah. That's gonna be a good while yet.

[Kytrin]

They have absolutely zero foresight. There's an interview that was done with Yoshi (don't have time to track it down at this moment) where he says that the way they went about creating/instancing apartments wouldn't let them incorporate yards/balconies. Maybe that's something they can figure out whenever they get around to ironing out details for making medium and large upgrades for apartments, but... yeah. That's gonna be a good while yet.

Well no, given all the drama with new wards and new rules and such I would hardly expect such a change in the immediate future. However, Yoshida did mention they would look into upgrading/reworking the apartments after 4.2, so it's not entirely unreasonable to think they might revisit this within the next 2 or 3 patches.

[Besame]

If they did some serious QoL changes for apartments (increased size or upgradeable to something at least comparable to a regular medium sized house, indoor gardening, indoor striking dummies) I would be all for moving to an apartment and letting an FC buy my personal one after it demolished. I'd have most of my furnishings, and I'd get back most of my gil. The difference would be negligible enough I wouldn't care.

A cool large 2-story loft-type apt with some planting area and big windows would make many happy I bet.

[Kytrin]

A cool large 2-story loft-type apt with some planting area and big windows would make many happy I bet.

Aye! You wouldn't even need to worry particularly about having vendors or anything since I think they're all right on hand in the lobby. So no trying to partition off space for them. Other than that, two stories approximately medium size is more than enough space for one. If they made it two mansion size stories that would be plenty of room for damn near anything you wanted!

[Darrcyphfeid]

how will 5 accounts hold 8 houses unless you grab houses NOW from resellers? I'm honestly curious how this would work.

It's pretty straightforward. For simplicity, we have Players A, B, C, D and E.

1. Player A has Master status in eight Rank 6+ FCs on their eight characters. Players B, C and D have characters in each of those FCs. This satisfies the 4-person requirement for FC house eligibility, and any additional caveats (4 characters on unique service IDs).
2. Player A purchases Plot 1. Players A, B, C and D are now no longer eligible to purchase FC houses.
3. Player A kicks Players B, C and D from FC-1. Players B, C and D are now eligible to purchase FC houses.
4. Player A invites Player E to FC-1. Player A gives Master status to Player E. Player A leaves FC-1 and is now eligible to purchase FC houses.
5. Player E now owns a single-character FC and is no longer eligible to purchase FC houses. Because no checks will be done on grandfathered estates to remove them, and because checks would punish any FC that drops below 4 members for any length of time (even 3 very active people), it is assumed no checks will be done on Player E.
6. Player A-2 purchases Plot 2. Players A, B, C and D are now no longer eligible to purchase FC houses.
7. Player A-2 kicks Players B-2, C-2 and D-2 from FC-2.
8. Player A-2 invites Player E-2 to their FC. Player A-2 gives Master status to Player E-2. Player A-2 leaves their FC.
9. Player E-2 now owns 2 FCs with houses and remains ineligible to purchase FC houses.

Just continue that until Player E owns 8 FC houses. All purchased post-4.2. All legitimately, all largely uncontested.

There are ways for SE to combat this. However, those ways will have a dire impact on non-resellers and/or put additional strain on the server by virtue of constantly refreshing to check eligibility status on either an account or instance level. It is far more likely that the only check in place will happen at time of purchase, and as shown, it's hilariously simple to bypass that.


If SE does implement a series of checks for this having spent 3 or so years blatantly ignoring hackers, amongst other things, I might implode.