Optional Instanced Housing

[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.

[iiTzSeb]

They could easily create FC-based instanced housing for the FCs so that they can have a private neighborhood for them and their members which would free up slots in regular wards

They could make the plots a universal size and allow people to start with a small and upgrade their house size on said plots as they obtain more money so there wouldn't be mad scrambles for mansions/mediums

They could literally just add wards as the player population increases, even though the ward system is hands down the worst player housing system in modern MMOs

And for people who don't care at all for a player neighborhood feel they could implement private instanced homes where it's just a singular land plot with decorative buildings/scenery/NPCs to give it a nice home feel

There's a plethora of solutions but the stubbornness on SE's part with wanting a "neighborhood feel" and the subsequent fanbase defence of their poorly executed method to obtaining this feel is what will keep the situation from ever improving

[Kenky]

They could easily create

Woah now, mister! Do you work at Square Enix? Do you know the technical side of the servers and their engine handling data values?

Because otherwise, you can't really claim it's "Easy" to do this or that.Plenty of people continue to claim about how easy it is to just add more wards, like it's a flick of the switch. But there's a lot more behind-the-scenes that could snap. We don't know how many bails of hay we can put on the proverbial camels back before it breaks.

While making "instanced FC housing" and such would help and the entire shift from all ward to ward/instance hybrid (you get to pick which one you want, with varying levels of gil investments to make it fair) would certainly alleviate most, if not all the issues we have. But even then, more people would prefer Ward-styles to Instanced-styles. Or at least that's the theory, what with people refusing apartments on principle.

(I am aware that Apartments have issues of 'being too small' and 'no garden'. But those issues can't be remedied without an entire revamp of the Apartment complex as a whole.)

[Jojoya]

They could easily create FC-based instanced housing for the FCs so that they can have a private neighborhood for them and their members which would free up slots in regular wards

They could make the plots a universal size and allow people to start with a small and upgrade their house size on said plots as they obtain more money so there wouldn't be mad scrambles for mansions/mediums

They could literally just add wards as the player population increases, even though the ward system is hands down the worst player housing system in modern MMOs

And for people who don't care at all for a player neighborhood feel they could implement private instanced homes where it's just a singular land plot with decorative buildings/scenery/NPCs to give it a nice home feel

There's a plethora of solutions but the stubbornness on SE's part with wanting a "neighborhood feel" and the subsequent fanbase defence of their poorly executed method to obtaining this feel is what will keep the situation from ever improving

Doing what you suggest wouldn't easy. It would mean they would need to completely rebuild the house portion of the housing system from the ground up. That's a significant amount of development time taken away from other things. It would also likely require all players to give up their existing housing (including apartments) as the wards would have to be demolished to make way for the new universal plots you describe.

We know they've been working on technology that could have a positive impact on what housing is like in the future. It was mentioned during the EU FanFest Q&A,

If they get that technology working, it could allow them to add instanced house plots while retaining a negihborhood feeling (so the best of both worlds). But that's still a big if. We don't know what progress, if any, they made on it. Or maybe it's mostly complete and Ishgard housing will be when they unveil it.

(I am aware that Apartments have issues of 'being too small' and 'no garden'. But those issues can't be remedied without an entire revamp of the Apartment complex as a whole.)

I think size could be addressed without any major rework. They could add medium and large wings to apartment buildings. They did say when apartments were added that it would be relatively easy for them to add additional apartment wings to each building if they were ever needed (as compared the problems of adding new wards). Players would probably need to relinquish to get a different size instead of being able to directly upgrade/relocate but that's a minor concern.

What would definitely require a massive rework would be to add gardening function outside of the flower pots we already have. Weather doesn't currently exist in housing interiors the way it does in the open world zones and wards, and the current garden plots are tied to weather. I doubt SE would ever add it to the apartment system.

[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.

[Andromea]

Housing is definitely one of my favorite features in FFXIV (but loved it in DAoC already, Rift… TESO). DAoC back in time had a similar system than FFXIV - people camping, waiting for the prices to go down and buying when they could afford a house (not so much of stealing someone's future plot while camping, different times then). And you could upgrade your house from small into medium and so on. On Rift on the other hand only totally instanced housing but … so many possibilities ! Building blocs, placing objects, modifying the size, rotating… A dream, really. TESO has its own way with some awfully expensive virtual domains and instanced housing only but no shortage. If you want to play with a house, you can easily get a huge ground (for free) to test your ideas.

And then FFXIV - lovely districts, lovely objects, neighbours etc. Well yes, I love it and by no means I would like it to disappear. But then again there is a sever shortage of plots. The game is old. Folks stop playing for what ever reason, they come back, that is normal. What is not normal is that one of the game's features is so difficult to get your hands on. And no, I don't think it should be for only few, an exclusive high end thing. Imagine now the same housing system we have and add to it an instanced system as a supplement. "Houses" in different zones, different sizes, with deferent purposes. No limitations what so ever besides some criteria to access it (gil, quests, FATEs etc). You could have one of those instanced houses or several or non. With permissions : open to all, friends only, FC only… Gardens with more than 30 or 40 items to place with a small cottage in the middle ? A fishing hut on the shore ?

Maybe difficult to implement, how can I know ? But wouldn't it be lovely ? And wouldn't SE want to at least explain why not ? Why do we still have to struggle with this outdated and frustrating system, a disgrace to be honest ?