possible solutions

[Nalien]

Just make plots instanced... Only thing we lose is the ability to seamlessly walk onto plots, but I really don't think that outweighs all the negatives we currently have... Limited plot availability being the biggest offender, significantly reduced outdoor furniture limit being another...

Make plots instanced, keep the zones as they are apart from that. Rather than one or two groups gathering at their nearest market board, you'd have a lot more people, since one plot could now have several peoples version instanced. Everyone would just walk to their plot, click on the gate and select which instanced version of that plot to enter, effectively the same as how we enter different wards/subdivisions/apartments now. Could have a system in place where a snapshot of players plots are randomly displayed in the zone to make it feel more lively, or just use template houses to fill the space... Either way, I think potentially being able to have unlimited availability of plots, higher furniture cap for gardens, and making the zones themselves more crowded are all massive benefits that I'd much rather see than "I can jump over the fence to leave my plot".

Heck, making the whole plot instanced might actually let you work some other seamless aspect in, namely letting us just walk into the house rather than selecting it and zoning in... Let that upper floor balcony door finally function, give us greater variety of furniture since outdoor and indoor furniture would now be the same thing, although placing a pond indoors does seem silly, but more freedom and options to create something is never a bad thing, IMO. Heck, could place stuff on the mansion balcony with such a system...

[Kytrin]

Just make plots instanced... Only thing we lose is the ability to seamlessly walk onto plots, but I really don't think that outweighs all the negatives we currently have... Limited plot availability being the biggest offender, significantly reduced outdoor furniture limit being another...

Make plots instanced, keep the zones as they are apart from that. Rather than one or two groups gathering at their nearest market board, you'd have a lot more people, since one plot could now have several peoples version instanced. Everyone would just walk to their plot, click on the gate and select which instanced version of that plot to enter, effectively the same as how we enter different wards/subdivisions/apartments now. Could have a system in place where a snapshot of players plots are randomly displayed in the zone to make it feel more lively, or just use template houses to fill the space... Either way, I think potentially being able to have unlimited availability of plots, higher furniture cap for gardens, and making the zones themselves more crowded are all massive benefits that I'd much rather see than "I can jump over the fence to leave my plot".

Heck, making the whole plot instanced might actually let you work some other seamless aspect in, namely letting us just walk into the house rather than selecting it and zoning in... Let that upper floor balcony door finally function, give us greater variety of furniture since outdoor and indoor furniture would now be the same thing, although placing a pond indoors does seem silly, but more freedom and options to create something is never a bad thing, IMO. Heck, could place stuff on the mansion balcony with such a system...

My one and only hesitation with this is I would be concerned about what would happen to those of us who already have houses. I fought hard for the plot I have, both for gil and to snag it before someone else did, and I'm very proud of my premium plot. I wouldn't want all that effort lost.

[ERMITANYO]

My one and only hesitation with this is I would be concerned about what would happen to those of us who already have houses. I fought hard for the plot I have, both for gil and to snag it before someone else did, and I'm very proud of my premium plot. I wouldn't want all that effort lost.

Well in the event that SE drops a dalamud moon over housing districts, to implement instanced housing, then probably current home owners should be given a 1 time free of charge plot acquisition, to a plot size comparable to what they previously owned and at a location of their choice.

[GomJabbar]

Yeah, no... That's not really compensation. If they want to implement instanced housing *from now on*, that's fine - I can support that. What I won't support is scrapping the current ward system in order to do it.

[ERMITANYO]

Yeah, no... That's not really compensation. If they want to implement instanced housing *from now on*, that's fine - I can support that. What I won't support is scrapping the current ward system in order to do it.

Hmmm perhaps:

current housing districts (which will become kinda like legacy districts) + instanced housing district.

Or

Expanded current housing districts + improved instanced apartment system.

[Nalien]

My one and only hesitation with this is I would be concerned about what would happen to those of us who already have houses. I fought hard for the plot I have, both for gil and to snag it before someone else did, and I'm very proud of my premium plot. I wouldn't want all that effort lost.

To clarify, I see it working like this;

We'd have one version of the housing zones.
All current plots would be moved, as they are ideally, into an instanced version.
The order plots are displayed in the list of instances (similar to the list for apartments/wards) would be based off what ward/subdivision you were in.
So lets take plot 3, everyone who currently owns that plot is now in an instanced, which they access at the placard.
Whoever owned it on ward 1 is first in the list, subdivision 1 second on the list, ward 2 third, and so on.
This would give us 36 versions of every plot currently, while allowing for more to be purchased on top of that since it's instanced.

Whether SE would implement it like this, however, I'm not sure... There are a couple other ways to work it, I believe a NPC holds onto all your furniture if you lose a plot currently anyway? So worst case that would be used to prevent any major loss of furniture. Given the new system is instanced, there shouldn't be any scarcity that results in a situation where you actually lose a plot, I'd hope anyway. Another way they could work it is just setting up a "transfer" period, where we have the current wards and instanced wards, anyone who currently owns a plot can transfer over for free (much like how moving to Shirogane worked?) and then after the deadline the old wards are deleted.

I really don't see any sense in keeping the current system at all. It's just far too wasteful. You've got what, 30 plots, 20 small (20 garden spaces each), 7 medium (30), 3 large (40)? That might just be Lavender Beds, too lazy to check all, but that comes to 730 pieces of furniture that can be placed in gardens, furniture which is always loaded because gardens currently are not instanced, that's a persistent strain on the servers, and that's just one ward, throw in the other 17 + subdivisions and that's a whooping 26,280 pieces of furniture for Lavender Beds alone (105,120 for all zones (lets not even touch on that being per server, of which there are over 60), the interior of a mansion caps out at 400, that's 262 additional mansion instances we could have instead?). And this is assuming fixtures don't add to this as well, which they almost certainly do (30 plots, 8 fixtures each? I forget)... Again, this is all a constant strain on the servers because it's not instanced... It just doesn't make sense to me to keep such a wasteful system, when it doesn't really provide any benefits...

Collapse all the wards into one area with instanced plots, and you've got benefits. Instantly you have 36 people who own each plot hanging around outside that plot, a much more lively area than what we currently see. Going and visiting other players plots becomes significantly easier as a result too, don't have to faff around going through wards and subdivisions anymore. Since it's now instanced, the garden area can potentially see an expansion to the number of furniture placed in it, something that is desperately needed, IMO. All that I see being lost is the ability to jump over the fence to leave, and perhaps some plot specific design details (bridges going over the fence, that sort of thing), which I'll gladly take if it means everyone can have a plot and the zones themselves are finally lively...

Yeah, no... That's not really compensation. If they want to implement instanced housing *from now on*, that's fine - I can support that. What I won't support is scrapping the current ward system in order to do it.

What exactly is worth keeping about the current ward system exactly? What benefits are there that can excuse such a grossly wasteful system? What benefit is there from keeping your garden, and every other garden in the ward, constantly loaded up, even when nobody is looking at them?