Optional Instanced Housing

[Maeka]

So, I know they want housing to be visible by everybody, but some people frankly don't care and would be perfectly fine with their housing being instanced and invite-only, and in fact, there are so many things that could be done with this, that it would open up a lot of doors.

Keep the current housing system to be sure, it's neat that there's non-instanced housing, but it's just too darn hard to get a house with the myriad of problems going on.

But for those players (like myself) who don't mind if their house is instanced, giving us optional instanced housing would be quite nice.

I know, I know, there are apartments and FC quarters, but those are tiny rooms compared to the mansions, or heck even a small house which is twice the size of an apartment without even considering the yard outside.

How this would work, is quite simple -- there could be an NPC standing near the entrance to the current housing districts that whisks players away to their own instanced housing, and this would be a single house near the current housing district in some sort of suburb or rural area, like a cottage in the woods near the Lavender Beds, or a house on the outskirts of the Goblet, or what-not. The player talks to the NPC and they get placed into an instance and the best thing about this is that the instance itself could be customizable (maybe like 2-3 different ones to choose from).

The player could invite anybody they want to see the place just like how apartments work, but at least they'd still have full access to a yard and other such things unlike how apartments work.

Maybe then those of us who just can't find a house, can maybe finally get one.

[Sauteed]

I don't want to jump in and curb any enthusiasm you have for this idea, BUT..

There are costs associated with this type of system, programming etc. It is my belief some higher up committee within Square Enix is banking that the cost of implementing this idea exceeds what they are projecting as profit, or the profit is so negligible that this will not come to pass any time soon. They probably take into account "longevity" and up/down trends based on the current mmo market, and might have a "bad" feeling about investing in the housing system as opposed to trying to fixing the problems listed with healing/tanking as myriad threads are blasting off constantly and affect more people than those interested in housing.

That being said, I do hope they bring about some form of instanced housing that greatly exceeds what is available now with an Apartment. Even a larger "apartment" with no yard would please a lot of folks, but finding some way to implement gardening in these cases may prove to be difficult or impossible for whatever reasons they will pose. I've read somewhere that gardening was tied to the weather/day and night cycle withing the wards so it is not possible in its current iteration to be replicated indoors. (that is what I think I read). Best wishes and I hope you receive your wish.

~~Edit.. It would; in my opinion; be wise of them to clue us in more to what the end result of the Ishgardian Restoration will be.

[iiTzSeb]

Everybody that's on this thread who has said some form of statement against the addition of instanced housing seem to not actually understand just how easy it would be for Square to implement.

Even F2P games like MapleStory 2 have instanced housing and they pull in FAR less money than FFXIV does, the bare minimum monthly sub to this game is $11 USD and we just hit 20 million accounts created, no more "SE can't afford it" excuses.

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

Everybody that's on this thread who has said some form of statement against the addition of instanced housing seem to not actually understand just how easy it would be for Square to implement.

Even F2P games like MapleStory 2 have instanced housing and they pull in FAR less money than FFXIV does, the bare minimum monthly sub to this game is $11 USD and we just hit 20 million accounts created, no more "SE can't afford it" excuses.

I don't think anyone is really against instanced housing.

I do think you might be underestimating the technical hurdles SE would have to work through to implement it in a way people would find satisfying. Remember FFXIV:ARR, and all subsequent expansions, is built on the skeleton of the original FFXIV. There's a lot of shortcuts and slapdash coding that was done to bring ARR into a workable and acceptable state. The limitations encountered now are the consequences of that.

I also don't think anyone believes SE can't "afford" it, more like SE has other priorities for their money. Every dollar FFXIV does not go back into the game's development. Far from it, most likely. Yoshi-P and the dev team gets their budget, which is likely much smaller than any of us would like it to be, and have to make do with that regardless of how much money FFXIV actually makes.

[Jojoya]

Everybody that's on this thread who has said some form of statement against the addition of instanced housing seem to not actually understand just how easy it would be for Square to implement.

It's not a matter of difficulty. House interiors were always instanced. Apartments were added - they are instanced. Clearly instanced housing is possible with their technology (though dynamic weather in it might not be).

It was a design choice. They wanted a neighborhood feeling for housing. They wanted players to be able to stand outside their house and see other players moving around their own houses.

I don't think they had anticipated the increased demand for houses over time, especially as the player base rapidly grew in size, or the problems that the ward system would introduce when it came to meeting that demand. They probably didn't anticipate how empty the wards would end up feeling either. Unless you have a house by a very large and active FC, you're not likely to see anyone else in your ward on a regular bais.

At this point, we need to wait and see what's coming with Ishgard.

[Hikari_Kishimoto]

I've read somewhere that gardening was tied to the weather/day and night cycle withing the wards so it is not possible in its current iteration to be replicated indoors.

That's why people came up with the idea of a balcony, what I would really appreciate.
I'd not only do gardening there, but also chill, bathe in the sunlight, wait for dungeons/raids to pop up etc.
So pls SE, make this a thing.

[Jojoya]

That's why people came up with the idea of a balcony, what I would really appreciate.
I'd not only do gardening there, but also chill, bathe in the sunlight, wait for dungeons/raids to pop up etc.
So pls SE, make this a thing.

The problem is that balcony would still be within an instance and lacking weather since housing instances don't have weather.

To be honest, I doubt that day/night sky conditions exist within instanced housing either. All we get is the window lighting effect that is tied to the Eorzean timer.

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

So, I know they want housing to be visible by everybody, but some people frankly don't care and would be perfectly fine with their housing being instanced and invite-only, and in fact, there are so many things that could be done with this, that it would open up a lot of doors.

Keep the current housing system to be sure, it's neat that there's non-instanced housing, but it's just too darn hard to get a house with the myriad of problems going on.

But for those players (like myself) who don't mind if their house is instanced, giving us optional instanced housing would be quite nice.

I know, I know, there are apartments and FC quarters, but those are tiny rooms compared to the mansions, or heck even a small house which is twice the size of an apartment without even considering the yard outside.

How this would work, is quite simple -- there could be an NPC standing near the entrance to the current housing districts that whisks players away to their own instanced housing, and this would be a single house near the current housing district in some sort of suburb or rural area, like a cottage in the woods near the Lavender Beds, or a house on the outskirts of the Goblet, or what-not. The player talks to the NPC and they get placed into an instance and the best thing about this is that the instance itself could be customizable (maybe like 2-3 different ones to choose from).

The player could invite anybody they want to see the place just like how apartments work, but at least they'd still have full access to a yard and other such things unlike how apartments work.

Maybe then those of us who just can't find a house, can maybe finally get one.

I don't think it's realistic to ask for yet another instanced housing system when we have apartments. I'd say it would be better to ask for improvements to the apartment system such as adding the option to purchase bigger (and more expensive) apartments, increase the number of furnishings we can place in apartments, and to ask for indoor garden plots so that apartment owners can crossbreed seeds.

For whatever reason, SE has some issue with adding instanced, yet outdoor spaces for housing. Until that hurdle is overcome, yards for instanced housing is probably not on the table.

[SamSmoot]

Don't make it like other games' instanced housing where each player has his own little private world that no one else can see unless they're in a party with the owner. They need to keep the neighborhood feel or existing housing but enhance it by eliminating the wards.

Each plot would have multiple owners, and you can select which owner's stuff to display via the placard. Your house will always appear on your lot by default, but you could still visit the other owners' properties with the placard.

The current system of one owner per plot results in the deserted neighborhoods we have now. With instanced plots, you'd have hundreds / thousands of residents in the same area.
When you're on your plot, others can still see it if selected, but they can't see you from the street. Once you leave, you're on the street with everyone else that's "outside"
Another advantage is that the house would no longer be a separate instance, so you could freely move in and out, and even have rooms open to the outside.

[Jojoya]

Don't make it like other games' instanced housing where each player has his own little private world that no one else can see unless they're in a party with the owner. They need to keep the neighborhood feel or existing housing but enhance it by eliminating the wards.

Each plot would have multiple owners, and you can select which owner's stuff to display via the placard. Your house will always appear on your lot by default, but you could still visit the other owners' properties with the placard.

The current system of one owner per plot results in the deserted neighborhoods we have now. With instanced plots, you'd have hundreds / thousands of residents in the same area.
When you're on your plot, others can still see it if selected, but they can't see you from the street. Once you leave, you're on the street with everyone else that's "outside"
Another advantage is that the house would no longer be a separate instance, so you could freely move in and out, and even have rooms open to the outside.

Even if they went to instanced plots (exteriors), I think house interiors would remain instanced separately.

Adapting current exterior layouts to an instanced system would save a tremendous amount of work and time because they could use copy/paste for the art/model assets and players could continue to use existing exterior/interior fixtures. Creating an instanced plot where interior and exterior were part of the same instance would mean rebuilding most of those assets. A couple of the current house walls make no sense compared to the interior layouts (one Glade exterior wall displays the house as being raised off the ground with no way to get into the basement area). Some exteriors are noticeably smaller than other exteriors (evidenced by the amount of space between the house wall and fence.