Fix Housing Megathread

[Snorky]

I would like one small house that is all! But I can not compete with bot clickers and people who stay up for hours to get one. One account one house, one FC house, one apartment. Rank in GC and transfers only once a week. No reselling of house or FC house it goes back in the resale catagory. This will eliminate people buying these plots and reselling them. You buy a house and keep it or lose it. So others have a chance. Make housing untradable.

[SXTC]

Ok I was made aware of this post as the “general” place to share housing suggestions & ideas.
So these are my suggestions (if they weren’t made already):


Communal housing:
The same housing ward keeps being used but the sharing option on them would get “enhanced” like this:

=> Small house = Can be shared with 3 people if used privately or shared with 1 additional FC.
- Add “lofts” which are bigger then apartments with higher ceilings & can be shared with 3 people or used by 1 FC.

=> Medium house = Can be shared with 6 people if used privately “or” shared with 1 additional FC (2 in total).
- Add “duplex” apartments which have 2 medium/large floors that can be shared with 6 people or or shared by 2 FC's.

=> Large house = Can be shared with 9 people if used privately use “or” shared with 2 additional FC’s (3 in total).
- Add “triplex” apartments which have 3 medium-large floors that can be shared with 9 people or shared by 3 FC's.

=> Replace the FC rooms to loft sizes and allow members to move their lofts to the FC (in the event if they already had one in the apartment complex. If a member is kicked they would not lose their loft, it would just be moved back to the apartment complex by default without loss of layout settings (no need to redo interior).

=> the search function would get an additional option to search for FC’s if you don’t know where they are located since crystals only show who’s using one of the houses.

=> When sharing a house with an FC, additional restriction options should be made available.

This idea would make the exterior in the ward seem more active/populated as more people would start using the same ward instead of being spread out over so many different wards (so while this may put more stress on 1 ward, much less wards would be needed which in turn would come down to a similar type of server stress).

I think adding more apartments and even adding a workshop to some of the bigger apartments may solve the issue because we all know housing is being abused by people who only want the workshop.
I lead 2 REAL Fc's.. one with 202 members and 1 with 112 members, currently only have 1 FC house. But there is a vast amount of FC's out there that only have 1 player online most of the time(and are usually just 4-10 ppl big) and I think we all know why...
I think they should also implement a system that does not allow FC's to own houses unless they have a specific amount of different members (or logins) every month or even a rule that auto locks the workshop if you don't have enough active members.
But I suppose the last can be solved by allowing FC's to assign apartments as an FC location for everyone to teleport to.

[baobaosun]

How about flying turtles in the sky as instanced housing? We can build on the back of a floating turtle and it's part of a quest series about making a home on the back of an endangered species. Maybe have it take part in the MSQ for End Walker?

Or how about a moving house that you can call upon like a mount? Like Howl's Moving Castle, but Final Fantasy? Get to customize your own moving castle and have it show up when you blow into a whistle. Maybe make it look like a moggle, or maybe make it look like Zenos on all fours crawling?

[Velisra]

Just going to drop this here in the mega thread, though I've already posted it elsewhere, as well as submitted it as a suggestion in game.

When Ishgard was being restored, I had hoped to see something like this for player housing (and honestly, there's no reason that older wards couldn't be converted to this as well):

Each house in Ishgard is actually a mini instance. When you choose a house, you buy it at the placard, and there are unlimited instances of that particular plot. Once you purchase it, you can decorate the yard as you see fit, and when you get close enough to the plot, you will see your own decorations. You can enter the house just as you do any other housing plot in the game, and your furnishings are there.

At the same time, any other player can purchase that same plot, and it will behave the same way: they've purchased it, decorated the outside, etc. When they roll up to the house, they see their own outdoor furnishings, of course.

The placard acts the same way as the entrance to the apartments does currently, once you've purchased. You can go to your own instanced house, or perhaps visit another by choosing an open one from the list.

In this way, each player can choose their favored location--is it small and cozy, medium with more space, or large to really show the wealth? Is it near the MB and aetheryte? Is it tucked away private in a corner, or have the most awesome view? Each player can have what they want, without camping, bitterness, or the RNG of some lotto system. The ward (note the singular here) would be full of players at all hours, because on the surface, there is only one ward.

The technology already exists in the game for something like this, it seems. You have apartments that are instanced, and you have the game already showing you things (npcs, airships, etc.) that are not visible to other players if they are not on the same quests. Put those things together, and BAM you have a new instanced housing system.

I'm just baffled at this point as to why SE is so bad at this, when they're so good at everything else.

[Besame]

Just going to drop this here in the mega thread, though I've already posted it elsewhere, as well as submitted it as a suggestion in game.

When Ishgard was being restored, I had hoped to see something like this for player housing (and honestly, there's no reason that older wards couldn't be converted to this as well):

Each house in Ishgard is actually a mini instance. When you choose a house, you buy it at the placard, and there are unlimited instances of that particular plot. Once you purchase it, you can decorate the yard as you see fit, and when you get close enough to the plot, you will see your own decorations. You can enter the house just as you do any other housing plot in the game, and your furnishings are there.

At the same time, any other player can purchase that same plot, and it will behave the same way: they've purchased it, decorated the outside, etc. When they roll up to the house, they see their own outdoor furnishings, of course.

The placard acts the same way as the entrance to the apartments does currently, once you've purchased. You can go to your own instanced house, or perhaps visit another by choosing an open one from the list.

In this way, each player can choose their favored location--is it small and cozy, medium with more space, or large to really show the wealth? Is it near the MB and aetheryte? Is it tucked away private in a corner, or have the most awesome view? Each player can have what they want, without camping, bitterness, or the RNG of some lotto system. The ward (note the singular here) would be full of players at all hours, because on the surface, there is only one ward.

The technology already exists in the game for something like this, it seems. You have apartments that are instanced, and you have the game already showing you things (npcs, airships, etc.) that are not visible to other players if they are not on the same quests. Put those things together, and BAM you have a new instanced housing system.

I'm just baffled at this point as to why SE is so bad at this, when they're so good at everything else.

You have to care before you can be really good at something SE's behavior over the years has shown that they really do not care about housing.

[Illmaeran]

So you’re owed ultimate weaps and savage clears too just since you bought the game?

I think the point Jillian's trying to make is that ward housing (not apartments or FC rooms) should be accessible to everyone. Savage and Ultimate raids are accessible to everyone who wants to put the time in to do them. The same isn't true for housing. No matter how much time or effort a player puts in, the limited nature of the content will always exclude a portion of the player base. Until there's at least a single small plot available for each account on each server, the problem of accessibility will remain.

Are players entitled to a free plot just because they subscribe? I don't think so, no. Just like having to put forth effort to get into Ultimates and Savages, a player should have to put forth the effort to earn the gil necessary to buy the plot.

Like it or not, housing is content that's advertised as part of the game, just like dungeons and the Gold Saucer. How would you like it if you had to pay 5 million gold to get into a lottery in hopes of buying a ticket that would give you access to non-MSQ dungeons, raids, and trials and if you don't luck out, to bad, so sad, you can't do that content? It's an extreme example, but the premise is the same.

For some, housing is the content they want to spend their endgame being active in. I'm not a big raider so housing is what I spent most of my endgame time doing previously. Once I lost the love for it, I didn't have anything else to keep me interested in the game on a regular basis so I took a break. In a very real way, housing is content that keeps people subscribed and engaged in the game. Limiting that, for whatever reason they have, costs them good will from the players and subscription income.

Sometimes I wonder how much long-term profit they'd make from people remaining subscribed to the game by spending the money to create the capacity for each account to have a plot.

[zoranreyes]

Housing issue is terrible especially you are in NA Data Center, which has received a population booms.
I have also heard there are many English players choose world of Japan DC for a better playing environment and I totally understand... Although some Japanese is not happy about that, but until there are more worlds in NA and incoming launch of Oceania DC I bet the problem would continue.

We're going to have more wards (in Ishgard) and lottery system to save our fingers, but it's just like a band-aid.
I don't think we will have the total housing overhaul in a short time, as the mechanism is pretty fixed, so I think it's why there are Island Sanctuary to let the building and gardening option available to every player (I hope so).
I really hope SQEX surprises me by adding an instanced buildable house and even an instanced workshop for airship and submarine with it too, as I realised that it might be the best solution for some FCs occupying a house just for workshop, or even FC house flipping issue.

And to make apartment a bit larger and more appealing is also a solution. In my world only the apartment complex in Shiro is nearly full, others are still quite empty. I guess we can have medium or large apartment to people who have more gils to spend.
(maybe 1.5m to 3m for a large studio room close to the size of a small house would be a good option to me)

Maybe it's also good to have an option to share a FC house with other FCs. I imagine there would be a separated instanced area of each FC while the outdoor decor like garden is shared.

[SXTC]

This game thought me that I love decorating... I wouldn't mind making that the main story of FFXIV so SE better upgrade its servers for the content that matters more! xD

[SXTC]

Sometimes I wonder how much long-term profit they'd make from people remaining subscribed to the game by spending the money to create the capacity for each account to have a plot.

To shed some light on that statement. I've been tired of the game since 4 years ago and when I log in I don't do any content despite not having maxed out all my classes.
All I care about is my FC community and what I can offer them through housing. That is why all these years I've suggested some upgrades FC's and houses while people tell me I'm "whining" simply cuss for me its the end game.
If you know I've been subbing an additional 4 years, not skipping a month just for that... imagine how much SE could earn if they concentrated more on housing instead of useless side quests.

[Illmaeran]

Snip

There have been quite a few times in recent memory where I wish I'd maintained my sub, did a little bit of gaming here and a little bit there, and maintained ownership of my old house when I needed to take significant breaks. Thankfully, until the large influx of players from other games, my server routinely had plots available for immediate purchase so I was able to get a new one when returning, but that original house was the best of all of them. Not to mention I had 5 or 6 Eastern Cherry trees from the original Little Ladies Day that now sell on the Mogstation...