Time to end the theft of home and bots - GIVE MORE WARDS-!

[Quintessa]

There was an interesting post on reddit a while back. Someone saw a bot, botting to buy an empty plot. That person decides to transfer their house there and put a retainer next to the sign, and made the retainer sell copper ore for around a million each. The bot ended up targeting the retainer instead (as it was no longer for sale since the dude transferred), and bought all of the copper ore for millions, until it ran out of money XD

Oh wow, I wish that was me. #GimmeGil

[SamSmoot]

Not only is this not possible but it is a terrible idea. Imagine someone is sat on a chair in their garden, yet for that plot you don't have their house loaded. Would they just be sat there on an invisible chair? Also, when I leave my house I would hate to find a gaggle of people loitering around in my garden because it also happens to be their garden as well.

Your house and yard would be a single instance, like the house is now, except that there would be multiple instances instead of just one.
I guess it would function like apartments do now, except that they'd include yards and appear outdoors.
The main difference from an apartment is that if a visitor selects an instanced plot from the list, it's exterior appearance and yard contents become visible to that visitor standing in the street or in their own yard.

[Skivvy]

I greatly dislike wards as a whole as they are so dead. Most days you'd be lucky to see even a small handful of people hanging around in the wards. This was even true for me when I was still back on Balmung which seems to hold more events in general. They just feel like a gigantic waste of space to me.

I am so very much on team Instanced/phased housing, and while they're at it, make it available to everyone. Long ago I had assumed instanced housing could only be like a moghouse from XI (similar to XIV's apartments) as that had been my only experience with it for so long. Then I stumbled into games like Wildstar and GW2 and was quickly shown how wrong that thinking was.

Wildstar gave you your own island to play with at I think level 15 or so, and later introduced neighborhoods where you could have a massive island with 4 other people (each still with their own large plot that you could freely run over to and visit).

GW2 lets you have an entire zone to yourself - they're huge. Granted GW2 is limited to guild ownership only, but it still helps to show what could be available with instanced housing.

My dream would be for them to take notes from Wildstar. Give everyone their own space at a low-level, but also have the option to have an instance with your friends if you so desire.

[BristolRuss]

Your house and yard would be a single instance, like the house is now, except that there would be multiple instances instead of just one.
I guess it would function like apartments do now, except that they'd include yards and appear outdoors.
The main difference from an apartment is that if a visitor selects an instanced plot from the list, it's exterior appearance and yard contents become visible to that visitor standing in the street or in their own yard.

Ok, so I don't think you understood what I said. Imagine I travel to the Mist and go look at a random house. Lets say this house is owned by Player A and Player B. Player A is sat on a chair in his garden. I come along and select Player B from the placard. The house and garden then update to reflect Player B's house and garden. What happens to Player A? Is he still sat there on a chair that I can't see because his garden isn't the one displayed?

[Skivvy]

Ok, so I don't think you understood what I said. Imagine I travel to the Mist and go look at a random house. Lets say this house is owned by Player A and Player B. Player A is sat on a chair in his garden. I come along and select Player B from the placard. The house and garden then update to reflect Player B's house and garden. What happens to Player A? Is he still sat there on a chair that I can't see because his garden isn't the one displayed?

My only experience with phased housing (I believe that's what this is called) is from BDO. It was kind of interesting. In BDO, the world and housing areas will look the same to all players as you roam about, but you simply cilck on the door and choose your room (or that of someone to visit), and then you are loaded into the house. One of the little things I did really like about how they handled it is that while you are in a house, the windows actually look out into the open world, and you can still see people moving around. Helps with making it feel more integrated and like you're still in the world.

Now, BDO homes didn't have yards to speak of, but if they were to opt for something like that, I'm sure the yard portion could be factored in. Have it keep a static appearance to everyone roaming by, but when you load into a specific home, the personalized yard would be included.

Ok, so I don't think you understood what I said. Imagine I travel to the Mist and go look at a random house. Lets say this house is owned by Player A and Player B. Player A is sat on a chair in his garden. I come along and select Player B from the placard. The house and garden then update to reflect Player B's house and garden. What happens to Player A? Is he still sat there on a chair that I can't see because his garden isn't the one displayed?

My only experience with phased housing (I believe that's what this is called) is from BDO. It was kind of interesting. In BDO, the world and housing areas will look the same to all players as you roam about, but you simply cilck on the door and choose your room (or that of someone to visit), and then you are loaded into the house. One of the little things I did really like about how they handled it is that while you are in a house, the windows actually look out into the open world, and you can still see people moving around. Helps with making it feel more integrated and like you're still in the world.

Now, BDO homes didn't have yards to speak of, but if they were to opt for something like that, I'm sure the yard portion could be factored in. Have it keep a static appearance to everyone roaming by, but when you load into a specific home, the personalized yard would be included.

e: BDO's housing is set up in a very different way than XIV. All the various housing locations can be easy to overlook as they are built right into the existing city buildings, or various homes in the outskirts. That also helps to make it still feel like you're part of the actual world as you're not just running to one entrance location per zone and popping into your house.

Housing is obviously handled very differently in XIV, but I still think instanced and/or phased housing could work. If they're not going for a full rework (and if servers wouldn't implode on themselves), perhaps they could go the route of keeping existing wards for those that enjoy it, but add in a few scattered plots that are handled in that instanced/phased manner. This way people aren't just stuck with an apartment in a single fixed location, and you can still see all the garish decorations of your neighbors as you run to your instance entrance...if that's a factor for you. :3

[Eldevern]

The intersting thing with BDO is everyone can buy the three biggest houses (or whatever houses they like) and it is not even expensive or complicated. With Wildstar housing it is were we see how rigid and weird housing is in FFXIV. Somehow, with glitches, it gives some possibilities but it can't overcome the access problem for gardening & workshop or the tiny size of houses/apartments.

[AngelCheese77]

https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Apartments

The problem is Apartments are too restricting with what you can put in or do with them.

There is so much more that is attached to houses, which is why people what them ... even a small one.

Give me more flowerpots and 2 floors, and I'll buy an apartment.

[SamSmoot]

Ok, so I don't think you understood what I said. Imagine I travel to the Mist and go look at a random house. Lets say this house is owned by Player A and Player B. Player A is sat on a chair in his garden. I come along and select Player B from the placard. The house and garden then update to reflect Player B's house and garden. What happens to Player A? Is he still sat there on a chair that I can't see because his garden isn't the one displayed?

Yes, you then see player B and his yard when selected, and A becomes invisible. You only see the selected instance and players in it. I suppose of player visibility from the street is too complicated, that part could be eliminated, and you'd only see is player B's empty yard when selected. If you entered the yard, it would work the same as visiting someone else's current house.


Question: If you're in your own house, and it's not locked, can you see visitors when they come into the house, or do they end up in a separate instanced copy of the house?

[Vahlnir]

There was an interesting post on reddit a while back. Someone saw a bot, botting to buy an empty plot. That person decides to transfer their house there and put a retainer next to the sign, and made the retainer sell copper ore for around a million each. The bot ended up targeting the retainer instead (as it was no longer for sale since the dude transferred), and bought all of the copper ore for millions, until it ran out of money XD

That's diabolical. And I love it.