Fix Housing Megathread

[Jojoya]

Only real reason I look down on it is because (AFAIK) you can't crossbreed in an apartment as that must be done at a house. IMO I don't think gardening should be attached to housing and I'm hoping that changes with Endwalkers.

Keeping a Jute cycle going is one of the reasons that I keep my house instead of letting it demo and living out of my apartments.

But those of us who actively crossbreed are the rarity among house owners. Many don't have a garden patch at all and it's empty as often as it's planted. When it is planted, it's more likely to have shards/Krakka Roots than a crossbreed set up.

Considering how few house owners are engaging in the activity, I don't see it as a reason to "look down" on apartments. Instead, it's just an extra perk for house ownership (with the corresponding risk of demolition).

I never camped a placard. Just timed the releases right. Like 95% of home owners. And yes you’re asking for a luxury item to be uniquely available to everyone when it’s advertised exactly as that; “luxury”

Where in the game's advertising is it described as a luxury item? Please provide a link for it.

On a side note, Mr. Happy just did an email interview with YoshiP. One of his questions was related to housing, specifically as to whether the apartment updates briefly mentioned in the past as design considerations were still in the works. YoshiP's response was they decided they would rather use their resources to provide more houses for players than to redesign the apartment system.

I know some players are attached to the idea that houses are supposed to be some sort of exclusive player club but SE's responses since the decision was made to open houses to individuals and not just FCs have not supported that. The current situation is mostly because the size of the player base, and thus demand for houses, exploded in a way SE never anticipated. Their nice little niche MMORPG gained a more mainstream popularity that they had quietly hoped for but never actually expected to get.

[Almagnus1]

Keeping a Jute cycle going is one of the reasons that I keep my house instead of letting it demo and living out of my apartments.

But those of us who actively crossbreed are the rarity among house owners. Many don't have a garden patch at all and it's empty as often as it's planted. When it is planted, it's more likely to have shards/Krakka Roots than a crossbreed set up.

Considering how few house owners are engaging in the activity, I don't see it as a reason to "look down" on apartments. Instead, it's just an extra perk for house ownership (with the corresponding risk of demolition).

I think we're looking at a chicken and the egg problem.... a lot of potential gardeners don't want to deal with a house so get turned off to it, and probably quite a few of the housing peeps don't want to garden.

[Jojoya]

I think we're looking at a chicken and the egg problem.... a lot of potential gardeners don't want to deal with a house so get turned off to it, and probably quite a few of the housing peeps don't want to garden.

Likely. Hopefully Island Sanctuary will address it, though my gut feeling is the farming there will not be the same items currently covered by gardening. Hopefully we'll learn more next weekend.

[Seleni]

I think we're looking at a chicken and the egg problem.... a lot of potential gardeners don't want to deal with a house so get turned off to it, and probably quite a few of the housing peeps don't want to garden.

And some house owners, who wanted to do gardening before getting the house, might have found actual gardening too much of a chore.

You have to tend to the crops once or twice daily. The process itself involves clicking and selecting from menu, so after a couple times it start to feel tedious. (And I say that as ex-FarmVille player) Most crops take 5-7 days to mature, so after planting it’s 5-7 days of you performing this mundane tasks daily before you finally get to harvesting.

For those who cannot login daily, either by oneself or among a couple responsible friends, it’s an impossible task.

And if you don’t have botanist, then your only source of many of the seeds, to start cross-breeding, is the marketboard. As botanist I tend to send my botanist retainer to grab seeds instead of getting them myself, because the process of getting 4 hidden seeds felt not worth my time.

Last night, with a low grade fever and tired, I had to drag myself to start up my gaming pc and login just to make sure my curiel & royal kukuru plants won’t wilt. The seeds took too long to get and are too expensive (to me) to buy for them to go to waste. And I was wondering to myself if it’s really worth the effort.

It’s gotten to the point where I’d found gardening more like work than game, after just a couple months. Many of those who’s owned house for years probably just decided it’s not worth their time to do.

[Sotaris]

May I suggest making some friends on your server or DC and they can tend the plants for you. That's what I do when I can't login every day ^^

[Seleni]

I wouldn’t want to ask friends to do what myself find tedious.
It’s better to let crops rot if it comes down to it.

[Sotaris]

If you were growing Thav onions I don't think you'd say that but each their own.

[Caitsithhh]

Where in the game's advertising is it described as a luxury item? Please provide a link for it.

On a side note, Mr. Happy just did an email interview with YoshiP. One of his questions was related to housing, specifically as to whether the apartment updates briefly mentioned in the past as design considerations were still in the works. YoshiP's response was they decided they would rather use their resources to provide more houses for players than to redesign the apartment system.

I know some players are attached to the idea that houses are supposed to be some sort of exclusive player club but SE's responses since the decision was made to open houses to individuals and not just FCs have not supported that. The current situation is mostly because the size of the player base, and thus demand for houses, exploded in a way SE never anticipated. Their nice little niche MMORPG gained a more mainstream popularity that they had quietly hoped for but never actually expected to get.

Luxury in price on release, luxury because of scarcity, luxury because it was never instanced and the list goes on. What about 50 mil doesn’t scream luxury to you?!?!

[Caitsithhh]

And yea firmament is coming with housing so you more luxury. The only thing not luxury that’s potentially coming is not islands that are instanced

[Seleni]

Point being that some of the benefits that the house-hunters cited, for wanting a house over apartment, could end up being not as what they imagined. (Myself included to some extent)

Gardening probably is easier and make more sense for a good-sized active FC. Neighborhoods are more likely to thrive if it contains a lot of active FCs due to simply higher number of people going in and out.

As a system designed for FCs, it all makes sense. But for individual house owners, once the excitement and the freshness wear off, what used to be super-important suddenly don’t seem so desirable anymore. That’s probably why gardening patches aren’t that common. (That or people hide it behind trees/partitions because what’s being planted doesn’t go with the rest of the yard, and, that scarecrow….)

But until you actually experienced it, you don’t know if it will turn out to be a dud for you. And once you’d spend the time and all that effort (and the click-placard savage), it’d feel like a waste to let it go, even if you don’t care about the millions of gils you’d spent. Not to mention all of the furnitures and time you’d spent putting all that in place. If you let go of the house then you’d need to find some place to store all that as some might have costed too much or are event items.

Ideally I’d like SE to create instance house that include house exterior and yard. (e.g. floating islands so they don’t have to worry about showing neighbors.)

But if they are citing “memory” issue for not implementing different sizes for apartments, a desirable instance housing system, that can be expected to be used by more players than the current apartment dwellers, is probably not likely. (Imagine having to wait in a queue to enter your instanced house because too many players are in theirs)

And any instance housing without exterior would probably get the same reception as current apartments.

I’d think one thing that might be possible for them to improve apartments might be to allow sharing. Even if not for friends, at least for the eternal bond partners. But who knows. Maybe that’s actually harder to do than increasing size of the apartments.