Housing for everyone?!

[Brynne]

I really like this idea, though I think it's unlikely that they would implement it due to the development resources required. I like the idea of an instanced housing system alongside the current wards (kind of a 'best of both worlds' option) and I've often thought about how versatile instanced housing could be. You could purchase upgrades without needing a free plot, and they could continue to build on it, adding all kinds of cool stuff that just wouldn't work with wards right now based on how they are implemented. It'd be amazing to have something like this but in a small, expandable neighborhood, where your friends could still live nearby. Really, that would be the dream.

I'm holding out some hope for Ishgard right now. If there is a housing system, it's going to be tied to the endgame content for crafting and gathering somehow. Unless that content is some kind of server-wide effort, having it unlock the same old wards feels... awkward. It would make more sense to me if we get to a certain point with the restoration and were given the opportunity to build and/or purchase a personal house that's instanced. But we'll have to wait and see.

[Bright-Flower]

I'd love some way to get everyone at least a small plot. Or even a small plot that can be eventually upgraded to a larger house a la Animal Crossing, with the ability to easily visit houses open to the public so that RP events can be held easily in them.

Unfortunately I don't expect this to happen, but maybe they'll do something with Ishgard.

[TenraiNagi]

I'm holding out some hope for Ishgard right now. If there is a housing system, it's going to be tied to the endgame content for crafting and gathering somehow. Unless that content is some kind of server-wide effort, having it unlock the same old wards feels... awkward. It would make more sense to me if we get to a certain point with the restoration and were given the opportunity to build and/or purchase a personal house that's instanced. But we'll have to wait and see.

It would be interesting if the housing in ishgard was related to the restoration of the city but I doubt it. In my opinion, Ishgard will turn into a large “enclave” like project with different ways to advance in its restoration because it would need DoH/ DoL classes. And housing will drop like it did in Shirogane. My doubt stems mostly from the idea that they won’t do something unique to Ishgard without applying the same rules to the other housing areas as that will cause player outrage lol, but as you said we’ll have to wait and see and hopefully pleasantly surprised

[LaylaTsarra]

Ishgard housing will most like be a ward based system but I suppose we could be surprised. I wonder if they are planning to update apartments. They did seem to say awhile back that they were considering small, medium and large versions where you could upgrade them as you go. Those are probably the closest we'll get to instanced housing. It would be nice if there were options for gardening and the like. They really haven't said much about housing since they released Shirogane and one can hope we'll get some news in a live letter soon.

[ERMITANYO]

Ishgard housing will most like be a ward based system but I suppose we could be surprised. I wonder if they are planning to update apartments. They did seem to say awhile back that they were considering small, medium and large versions where you could upgrade them as you go. Those are probably the closest we'll get to instanced housing. It would be nice if there were options for gardening and the like. They really haven't said much about housing since they released Shirogane and one can hope we'll get some news in a live letter soon.

I do hope that upgrades for apartment housing becomes a reality from the small studio type to a medium 1 bedroom, and a large 3 bedroom, all with balcony for some outdoor items atleast, that way it will be somehow enticing to own an apartment.

[Nalien]

I honestly think they just need to make plots instanced... Just have one version of the Lavender Beds/etc, and lock off the plots so you cannot enter the building space anymore (maybe add a gate to the fence), instead you zone into the plot by selecting the placard or something. That way SE should be able to do two things; Provide more plots and remove the scarcity players hate. And increase the cap on how much garden furniture we can place, since it would now be instanced... Heck thinking of it, you could do away with the garden/indoors concept completely and just let us walk through the door instead of zoning into the house, maybe make use of that upstairs balcony door...

You'd just be able to walk around the housing zones, maybe the plots themselves display randomly selected plots players have made. That keeps the whole neighbourhood concept we have going, right? Honestly not even a concept worth having at this point IMHO, SE did nothing with it... We basically had one Christmas event that sent you to interact with peoples furniture and that was it... I honestly think most seasonal events should have something like that, and not just once and then never again, make it an every year staple of the seasonal event... Trick or Treating at Halloween? An Easter Egg hunt in the housing wards? There are a lot of fun ideas you could do with the system we have...

Perhaps I'm mistaken that instanced housing would be a panacea to cure all housing demand issues though... Honestly though, I'd prefer just having 1 Lavender Beds/etc. than the current 36 mirrors of it we have... Not a great deal of reason to visit those other 35 versions... If it was just the 1 zone, with the plots randomly selecting which house to display when I enter? I'd see a lot more peoples houses, probably...

Either way, I think housing needs a complete rework in this game... It's too good a reward to have crippled like this with limited availability... Turns what is, in my opinion, one of the better aspects of this game, into a huge frustration for most of the playerbase... Drop a Dalamud on the housing wards and rework the concept from the ground up, please... Everyone should be able to have the plot they want... If adding more housing servers is too much of a cost to be viable, rework the system completely...

[Dyvid]

We have instanced housing, everytime you enter a house or apartment, it's an instance. Only the wards are zones that take place in the world server maps.

[Shougun]

We have instanced housing, everytime you enter a house or apartment, it's an instance. Only the wards are zones that take place in the world server maps.

Probably could use more clear wording than just simply "instanced housing" but I think it's pretty clear what people mean when they ask it though, especially given context of what people ask for. Unlimited instanced housing, or more particularly an instanced house available for every single player and FC (don't need more houses than there are people who could possibly use them).

[Nalien]

We have instanced housing, everytime you enter a house or apartment, it's an instance. Only the wards are zones that take place in the world server maps.

What's your point, exactly? I'm clearly talking about the exterior plots here, which are not instanced... If they were instanced, SE could hopefully get around the ridiculous server limitations they currently impose and as such offer people far more plots than is currently possible...

As far as I know, right now every plot in every ward is constantly taking up server resources, whether anyone is in those zones or not, because they're not instanced. Interiors and apartments on the other hand, the server doesn't need to load them if nobody is using the instance, so it saves space and doesn't load them, thus allows us to; 1) have far more of them, and 2) place far more furniture in them. Apply that to the plots themselves and end this ridiculous scarcity that only exists because of woefully poor planning on the developers part.

Seriously, there is no point in plots being the way they are. Literally nothing is done with this concept. Housing wards themselves are dead, people basically only sit in their own plot/the nearest market board. I'm sure some enjoy walking around the wards, heck I do sometimes, but it really doesn't justify the ridiculous limitations it imposes on the housing system... Can even keep that concept in part by just locking off the plots and making them instanced, you could still walk around Lavender Beds, you'd just need to zone into a plot rather than seamlessly walking into someones garden. I really don't think that feature is worth also saying "Only X number of people can own a mansion" because we're limited on how many can be added as a result of it...

Heck, instanced plots would arguably make the wards feel more alive. Rather than one person occupying plot 1, you'd have multiple people occupying the instances there... The market boards outside would feel much more lively as a result, since you'd be drawing a greater number of players there. More socializing. More people talking about their houses. Better than the few groups hovering around the market boards we currently get...

[Dyvid]

What's your point, exactly? I'm clearly talking about the exterior plots here, which are not instanced... If they were instanced, SE could hopefully get around the ridiculous server limitations they currently impose and as such offer people far more plots than is currently possible...

As far as I know, right now every plot in every ward is constantly taking up server resources, whether anyone is in those zones or not, because they're not instanced. Interiors and apartments on the other hand, the server doesn't need to load them if nobody is using the instance, so it saves space and doesn't load them, thus allows us to; 1) have far more of them, and 2) place far more furniture in them. Apply that to the plots themselves and end this ridiculous scarcity that only exists because of woefully poor planning on the developers part.

Well from my understanding our game is divided into two pieces on the data center. The Server world which contains world zones and all things that go along with it including outside wards towns. Then you have our instances which we call the DF which creates and contains all the things that require an instance like Dungeons, Trials, Raids, Stormblood's Raubahn, and the interior of all houses and apartments. Currently instance houses are a square floating in a blank space, simple to save and reproduce without too much strain on resources. But when you add the outside environment with sky, lighting, weather, so on and so on; it's starts adding up. In fact when housing first came out, there was problem in the DF server similar to SB Raubahn bringing the change that you can't log back into your house but rather in the ward. Unfortunately FFXIV architecture is built and the devs have to navigate within that design. So to sum up my reply, making a instance housing area on the DF server would only move the problem from one area of the game to another. The last thing we want get boot from a raid and hit with error codes because of housing or vice versa.

P.S. I do agree that the wards are empty right now and wish SE would add things to make them more lively.